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Subject:Re: alternative to numbering? From:"Higgins, Lisa" <LHiggins -at- CARRIERACCESS -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 5 Aug 1999 12:08:55 -0600
Joanne Grey wrote:
> We are producing two rather large docs (about 700 pages each)
> that will
> be translated into multiple languages. because of this,
> management wants
> to move to a numbered heading system - like the military, where the
> Heading 1 is "Section 1", heading 2s are "Section 1.1" heading threes
> are "Section 1.1.1" and so on.
Why? So the sections in the translated manuals parse to the sections in the
non-translated manuals? Is there a non-internal need for this? I can see
where it would be a valuable thing for the translators and writers, but I
don't understand the user benefit of a numbered heading system for
translated manuals.
> The doc manager would like to avoid this for aesthetic reasons. Has
> anyone used an effective alternative.
Again, I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of the numbering is, but
running headings with the chapter title are probably enough to give the
users a way to locate where they are in the document. If the reasoning
behind this has to do with internal needs, then it would make more sense to
have an internal system to keep track of things, rather than burdening the
users with superfluous information.
Has anyone seen any kind of usability studies regarding numbering schemes
and/or document organization or anything like that? I'd be interested in
seeing hard data. I suspect that the best-case scenario is that users ignore
numbered sections, but that's just my gut feel.
