Quality technical information: paving the way for usable print and web interface design

Principles of information style and design have been around for years. Look at the shelf life of Strunk and White's classic Elements of Style, published in 1959 and still a bestseller. Producing Quality Technical Information is a gem of a book whose precise, bullet-style list of seven requirements and a checklist is now even more insightful in the fast-paced world of online information and the World-Wide Web. As a writer, I'm amazed how the IBM authors crystallized the essence of good information design in less than 100 pages. This commentary describes how the book's seven qualities and thirty individual requirements can easily and usefully be extrapolated to address key issues of interface design and usability for today's professional designers and developers.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2002
• Where: JCD
• Authors: Theo Mandel
• Keywords: Classic Elements, JCD 2002, Quality Technical Information, Shelf Life