Ric, Sherlock wrote: However I'm increasingly of the opinion that we don't need icons. Writing down my vision of our target audience[1] helped clarify in my mind that "pandering" too much to the reader isn't necessary. I'm thinking that hyperlinked words, perhaps with the use of mouse-over text pop-ups, might be the way to go. As Dan points out - it works for Wikipedia!
Skip Cave replies: After seeing Ric's latest Voc primitive template, (http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Vocabulary/greaterthan./) I think we are really getting somewhere! Ric solved my concerns about understanding monadic and dyadic definitions, by weaving the valence definitions into the initial description of the primitive. He then hyperlinks the words "monadic" and "dyadic" to their description pages, and those hyperlinked words have pop-ups that give a brief hint as to what following the link will reveal. Excellent work! I still think that we need some indication of the "must know" vs. "nice to know" priorities of the hyperlinked pages, but as Ric says. "It would be possible to use CSS styles to mark these different types of links if desired (e.g. background colour/outlined/dotted border etc)." If we implement style changes on the hyperlinked words to indicate learning priorities, we have effectively turned the critical words/phrases into the learning priority icons that I had originally proposed. I now agree with Ric that we don't need icons, at least not for new-concept indicators. Hyperlinked items with style hints and pop-ups are plenty enough to give the various readers the directive info they need. I like the idea of colors on the hyperlinked words to indicate learning priorities. I understand that that would be a problem for color-blind people, however. We use color on the opening Voc page to indicate parts of speech. Will that page be usable for the color-blind? I'm also not sure if it is is possible to weave monadic and dyadic explanations into the initial description of every primitive. Also, that technique doesn't lend itself very well to templating. However, it certainly is effective for the Ceiling/Max primitive. . I think we will need some clear guidelines as to what the purpose and scope of the pop-up text is to accomplish, before we get too far. So here is a shot at that: Pop-up text on a hyperlinked word or phrase should provide a brief description of the meaning of the hyperlinked item, if possible. Pop-ups can be quite verbose, but an arbitrary limit of 20 words or so might be a reasonable max size for a pop-up. If it takes more that that to even briefly explain the hyperlinked concept, the pop-up should probably be left off. Pop-up text on a hyperlink should be targeted to the reader who may have read about or studied the concept previously, but just needs a memory jog to remind them of the meaning. Novices should almost always follow the hyperlink to the full descriptions and tutorials. We could also put the "must know" and "nice to know" indicators in the pop-up, if we don't want to use different text styles for the hyperlinked items. In any case, the concept of using hyperlinked items, color coded for importance, and with pop-ups for memory-jogging, seems to be an excellent way to tie the whole Reference/Tutorial Vocabulary and Dictionary together in a integrated web of information, without getting too intrusive or distractive with icons. Skip Cave . ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
