RE: The Myth of Seven, Plus or Minus Two

[eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com]

Steven Jong <SteveFJong -at- comcast -dot- net> wrote on 12/04/2003 09:10:08 AM:
> In a later reply, Eric is blunt about people who apply theory: "I
> believe that any blind adherence to an approach
> (scientific or otherwise) stems from the basic insecurity
> many have with defending their own thoughts and beliefs."

> Now, as the person who spoke up in agreement with applying Miller's
> approach, I must say I take this comment (which, after all, is an ad
> hominem attack) rather personally.

Sorry you took it personally. But I do believe that ANY reference to Miller is
out of place and simply blind adherence to a badly interpreted study. My first
objection to using Miller's approach is that it ISN'T Miller's approach
(according to Miller himself).

If you are on the otherhand looking to be concise, and keep the information you
are presenting simple, just follow Einstein's view.

"Things should be made as simple as possible, and no simpler."

If you are capable of defending your own ideas, that quote and the reason your
menus, headings, lists, or whatever are organised or numbered in whatever way
they are should be sufficient. Under such a scenario, if my work was critiqued
and the reviewer can provide concrete reasons why something is overly complex
and defend the point that simplifying or re-organising won't complicate or
confuse the user/reader but will instead clarify the issue, then I'll agree with
them or come to a compromise. If on the otherhand, I'm approached by a PHB that
says there shouldn't be more than 7 sections, or I should split a check list in
two because it has twelve items, they're going to get my piece of mind.

One off-list response even went to say that a  director of research who insisted
that his teams not exceed seven people. I can only hope it had no connection to
Miller's paper. Hopefully it was a team size that was arrived at through
experience in the field and with the type of research being performed and that
the director was intelligent enough to know when more than seven would be a good
idea.

The assertion was that "by eliminating the rule, what you get is data dumps that
don't get organized." To which I can only reply: Balderdash. Failing to properly
manage the research effort, not having defined goals for the data to support or
correctly defined deliverables/responsibilities for the team members, and not
demanding that data be appropriately organised leads to data dumps and
information overload.

While rules of thumb for team size, data categories, etc. ARE a great idea, they
should IMO only provide a starting point. Just don't use Miller's research to
justify the choice (Unless you're asking people to immediately recall several
unidimensional items memorised from a list).

And if we are to continue talking about 7+/-2 then concrete examples MUST be
used. Otherwise it's just empty discussion and each person brings their own
bias/experience into it without being able to understand the other's.

Eric L. Dunn
Senior Technical Writer



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