Page length

[Paul Kippes]

 Simon Branford <simon.branford at hertford.ox.ac.uk> wrote: 

"How can I judge how long a FAQ is becoming?"

One of the few bits of advice that anyone has given me about writing web
pages is that people do not really like to scroll too much. I have no idea
if this is true but generally go with the idea of producing lots of smaller
pages. This can however lead to the opposite problem of making too many
different pages to be viewed to get the required information.


Is this an answer to your original question Penny?

It's becomming evident that many of us use the WWW in very different ways.  As far as page lengths, I have seen FAQs in both styles.  The style where each topic is on its own page and the style where the whole nine-yards is on one very long page.  I would expect that most people won't be printing this thing out which would be the strongest reason to to use the later.  A long page also requires that the entire page load rather than just the section the user is interested in.

I don't know much about it, but the little people in the Linux area generate their HTML pages using other tools.  Their HTML pages, however, are VERY plain (I give an example link below) and without graphical fluff.  But this method (the Linux method) allows many sectioned pages to be generated by one large (I assume) source file.

For an example format of a rather large but well orgazined FAQ, look at this (http://metalab.unc.edu/mdw/FAQ/Linux-FAQ/index.html).  The entire contents are on the first page and each major section is on another page.  Also note, that their sections are cross-linked (and at second glance not all that simple).

Now if we are going to be adding graphical fonts to the headers, this will slow down the loading time and the Linux method won't work.  I guess it comes down to what are the priorities:

   Fast loading time without (many if any) graphics
   Consistent look
   Fancy graphics
   Content
   Format
   Entertainment
   Information


I can look into the plain-joe formatter used by the Linux method if there is any interest and get back to everyone by the weekend.  As probably everyone has figured out, I like to simplify tasks for other people (what a strange thrill).

However, since we want to entertain as well as inform, we can make the thing pretty (but create additional up front work and possibly maintance.)

I guess I should also ask, how is the writting going?  Do you feel that you are spending too much time formatting?  If that is the case, we should work towards off-loading that chore onto a non-FAQ author (as Simon mentioned).

Paul

 



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