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Subject:RE: Using tables for content From:"Janoff, Steven" <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- ga -dot- com> To:"techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com> Date:Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:24:35 -0700
Disagree. You're making too many assumptions about Sean's process.
Sean had a good idea and should be encouraged to explore it if he so desires.
And again, all of your objections come from the author convenience standpoint. There's nothing about usability here, and that to me is the ultimate question.
Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: On Behalf Of Robert Lauriston
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2013 10:17 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Using tables for content
It's not an analogy. I've mapped Word styles to HTML and CSS (or
vice-versa) many times.
The need to do that sort of thing is exactly why it's a bad idea to use tables to define ordered lists. The amount of time I've spent undoing messes other people made with tables probably adds up to several months at this point.
Sean had a bad idea and should be discouraged from pursuing it.
On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Janoff, Steven <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- ga -dot- com> wrote:
> The CSS analogy doesn't apply here. That has to do with coding practice. Using Word styles has nothing to do with coding in HTML & CSS.
>
> This is about (1) author convenience, and (2) usability (or Information Design, or whatever you want to call it).
>
> From an author convenience standpoint, if you can rock tables, that's a great skill.
>
> From a usability standpoint, if you're good at organizing information, you can rock a table-style presentation. As to who needs feedback on using tables for procedures, I'd say anybody considering that as a presentation mode vs. the usual ordered list-style presentation.
>
> The old documents from the 60s and 70s that used this style were very effective, as I recall. There's no reason you can't make it work.
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