- Most info architects agree – planning for reuse is harder than conditional text. But even conditional text can be difficult, especially if there are multiple conditions that overlap. The winner of the “most conditional text” contest was this commenter on my talk.bmc post with 64 conditions in a FrameMaker document.
- Author-it has this to say about the business case that would make you think you need conditional text. Apparently you don’t need conditional text, with enough content chunking and reuse. I’m not sure I buy it so it makes my head hurt.
- I still struggle with topic authoring – but I’m finally “over” separating content from format. Whew! That only took a couple of years. This week I’m chunking of information using the rule of “seven plus or minus two.” That doesn’t usually make my head hurt, until I start coming up with all sorts of scenarios (maybe the user wants to set up their web site pricing for a DVD sale in the month of March!) and then I find myself writing too many topics.
- I also read Jon Udell’s great post about potential reasons why del.icio.us hasn’t really gone mainstream, Discovering versus teaching social information management. I think my own tag merging and pruning best practices need work. My favorite lines are from the comments, such as “people need to both realize that they can do that database query, and that they can refer to the results using a stable URL. I’m coming to believe that both those operations are still way beyond the capabilities of mainstream web users.”
- And finally, inline linking versus grouping links together. Usability studies and experts disagree on the correct way to link. I’m not sure I have the answers yet either. Better keep studying and linking.
What are some aspects of information architecture that are making your head hurt lately?