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When I've worked in organizations where unreasonable fiats come from on
high (I've never owned a Fiat, but I understand they are all
unreasonable), I've found that it is sometimes possible to comply
without complying.
In your situation, I think a typographic workaround would be
appropriate. For example the common information that "they" want up
front could be treated as a slug and the differential information could
be larger, bolder, and in a more prominent color. The titles would meet
their requirements and show up that way in an alphabetic catalog, but
visually the emphasis would be on the important stuff.
Dick
Becca Price wrote:
>
> Can anyone cite usability studies about document titles for me?
>
> I'm a tech writer working on three documents: and
> Administrator's Guide, Installation Guide, and release notes for
> the same product.
>
> Word has come down from On High that we're standardizing our
> titles, so I'm being asked to rename my documents as follows:
>
> * Comshare (R) MPC(TM) 4.2 Administrator's Guide
> * Comshare (R) MPC(TM) 4.2 Administration Installation Guide
> * Comshare (R) MPC(TM) 4.2 Administration Release Notes
>
> I have a vague feeling that this violates some usability
> guideline or another, that the more standard stuff you put at
> the beginning of titles the harder it is to differentiate
> bettween the documents.
>
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