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Information Mapping - Love it/Hate it - An Explanation
Subject:Information Mapping - Love it/Hate it - An Explanation From:Amy Brown <AMYB -at- IPRAX -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 5 Sep 1996 14:35:54 -0500
-Reply
Yvonne wrote:
<The rule for IM is 7 +/- 2. That is the chunks of information can be from
<5 to 9. But it's a rule made to be broken. If you've got a 20 step
<procedure you're obviously violating the system but hey if it's 10 - 12
<steps long... weelllll - as long as it works.
Short response: I don't think it's set in stone either.
Long response: According to Edmond Weiss, author of "Writing Usable
User Documentation" (I think that's the title), if a task is more than nine
steps long, the procedure itself may be a combination of two or more
tasks which can be broken down into two chunks of 5-9 steps each.
Worth thinking about even if you don't always do it.
Amy
amyb -at- iprax -dot- com
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