\Dining Guide: Canadian Restaurant Listings by Region\
\Table of Contents\
\Restaurant listings are available for the following regions:\
\
\
\
\
====================8<====================8<====================
(Providing an explanation of each region would simply annoy Canadian
readers, at least, and would keep the whole list from fitting on a
single screen.)
My gut reaction now, *whenever* I see a column of links each <40 chars
wide, is: this person is wasting my time. Forty chars just aren't
enough to detail a link.
That depends on the nature of the readers. I teach writing, and the
first thing I tell my students is that there is no such thing as
correct grammar or a correct writing style -- instead, you use the
method which is most appropriate to your audience (in an academic
essay I would have written "A writer should use the method which is
most appropriate to...", but the net is more informal). There is no
set of rules formulated which can take away from the author (or
document designer) the obligation to think about the document and its
audience.
Keeping the summaries concise enough so that the whole ToC fits on a
single screen *is* nice for return visitors. But they'd probably
also like #-links to the subtopics in each 'chapter'... And, in
fact, they probably won't be using all the chapters, so they'd do
better to bookmark just the ones they really use!
This is an oversimplification. A first-time user might have a great
deal of expertise in the field and might be able to find information
quickly based only on succint chapter titles; on the other hand, an
experienced user might need to consult the table of contents
frequently to find information in different sections.
Of course, by now most of this little to do with hypertext theory and
almost nothing to do with SGML -- it's more along the lines of "Tips
and Tricks for Web Document Designers" -- so I beg the indulgence of
the group.
David
--
David Megginson Department of English, University of Ottawa,
dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA K1N 6N5
ak117@freenet.carleton.ca Phone: (613) 562-5800 ext.1203
WWW: http://www.uottawa.ca/~dmeggins FAX: (613) 562-5990