WWW Style guide

Overlapping Trees

Here is an example of a work (describing some programming functions, say) with two separate structures:

			Tutorial			Reference
			   |				    |
		  Let's do it together		       -----------------
		from simple to difficult	      |			|
			    |			by Functional      Alphabetical
			    |			    group	     by name
		  Task oriented examples	      |			|
			    |				    |
		  Examples of use of		   Syntax definition for
		  specific functions   <-------->    specific functions

The novice user starts at the top left, and works his way down. Where he needs specific details, he will get down to the examples and from them a link to the underlying definitive descriptions of each. As far as he is concerned, he is reading a tree-structured work. In fact, he is reading the same information as the expert who, coming in to check on one particular function, then looks up an example of its use.

(Up to structure , back to user's structure , on to: document size )
© 1991-95 Tim BL