chapter9

Chapter Nine Response
At first, lists and tables seem like basic concepts to devote to an entire chapter but Redish’s information in Chapter 9 follows her theme of “letting go of words” and making web pages easy to skim and scan. Kathy discusses specific topics related to lists and tables while Kelly relates topics in Chapter 9 to previous chapters.

Kathy found three concepts that stand out in this chapter.

This item seems like common sense and goes along with the need for active space, but I think it is important because it makes the items much more readable.
 * Wrap lines under each other, not under the bullet.**

When bullets match the personality of the site, it often causes me to be more interested in the material. The National Science Foundation example of using photos in place of bullets reminded me of the American Museum of Natural History web site: @http://www.amnh.org/. They use photos and illustrations to represent topics. However, if not done well, this same technique can be distracting and turn your audience away from your site. The following link shows an example of how NOT to use themed bullets (scroll down to “Other Interesting Links”): @http://www.scopesys.com/. There is not enough active space between the images and the thick blue box around each illustration is distracting.
 * Match bullets to your site’s personality**.

I liked Redish’s approach of using “if, then” statements when creating a table—the “if” part goes first. The following link shows an example of a shipping rates table: __ http://www.cheng-tsui.com/customer_service_support/customer_service_ordering_information/shipping/shipping_estimates/domestic. __ It follows the “if, then, then” format: “//If// you want to ship UPS Ground, //then// the shipping time will be 4-8 business days, //then// the cost will be….” Kelly found that much of the information in Chapter 9 built upon concepts learned in previous chapters.
 * Think carefully about what to put in the left column of a table.**

In Chapter 7, Redish convinced me to NOT center text because our eyes need an anchor, and we are slowed down by centered text. This is also true in tables, as she discusses in Chapter 9. As someone who had previously loved to center text in documents and tables, this was a big lesson for me to learn (one that it didn’t hurt me to hear again).

In Chapter 8, I made comparisons to procedure writing when Redish advised us to “start with the context” and provide “first things first, second things second.” Her advice in Chapter 9 matched how we write procedures in technical writing, and the same reasons are behind it: to keep users safe, to help users perform all the steps in the right order without forgetting/missing anything. The following advice for writing instructions for the web really stood out for me as being similar to writing procedures in technical writing: - Provide one action for each step. - Start each step with a verb in the imperative. - Use numbered lists for instructions. - Keep sentence structure parallel.

The following tips from Redish are also pertinent to technical writing: - Tips are not numbered steps. - Warnings are not numbered steps; they should precede the related step.

While there were many new concepts explored in Chapter 9, I was struck by how the material in this chapter built upon the information provided in previous chapters.

My Response: I agree with both Redish and what this group had to say about bullet’s matching a page’s personality. In the second example given in that section ( @http://www.scopesys.com/ ), not only were the images surrounded by a distracting blue line, they were also various sizes, which made one lose the sense of a list. In using bullets in this way, the personality of the site is shown to be inconsistent, which is probably evident by the rest of the page as well. It took me some time to determine the true purpose of this website!

I also found a lot of value in the concept of starting all bulleted and numbered lists with a action verb. I have seen many websites over the years use bullet points and after thinking about it, it was quite apparent that the most successful ones used this idea. The action verb gets to the heart of the matter, giving the user a springboard approach to the problem or activity at hand. When it doesn’t start with action verbs it takes longer to read, and can become frustrating very fast. I also agree with the statement that tips are not numbered steps. It may be tempting to number then for some people, but it doesn’t make much sense. Numbers suggest some kind of order is involved, but tips have no specific order to follow. Once again most of what Redish says seems like common sense, but they are good reminders for those working on websites, who have so much else on their minds when creating their pages.