[wp-docs] The Codex Main Page

[Morgan Doocy]

On Dec 18, 2004, at 6:58 AM, Owen Winkler wrote:
> I'm assuming it has something to do with this guy:
> http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/
>
> But I was hoping he could explain.
>
> Owen

He is indeed. Edward Tufte is the god of information presentation. He's 
the Jakob Nielsen of the print world: equally zealous and absolutely 
brilliant. Were I female, I would have his babies.

What Matthew was referring to by "Tufte-ization" was a concept of 
Tufte's called "Data-Ink Maximization," whereby any ink not directly 
used to convey meaning and information is removed: thus the removal of 
borders and background shading from the Main Page.

However, the Tufte realm is largely -- athough not exclusively -- 
graphs, charts, tables, and quantitative illustration. His fist three 
books, which I own and adore, are titled "The Visual Display of 
Quantitative Information," "Envisioning Design," and "Visual 
Explanations." They outline excellent principles for effectiveness in 
presentation of statistical information, data representation, and 
graphic design (as it relates to information).

I consider the Main Page to lie only partially within this realm, and 
therefore do not think that Tufte's label of "chartjunk," i.e. borders 
and shading that do not directly convey information, necessarily 
applies. Consequently, I am pro-borders.

The subject of "more"-page linking is not Tufte's realm at all; rather 
it pertains to the WCAG and §508 accessibility guidelines. Matthew 
linked to a section in the WCAG 1.0 guidelines [1], and he's right: for 
an accessible site we shouldn't use "more..." for the text of a link -- 
UNLESS we add a 'title' attribute that explains more about where it's 
going. Which, as it happens, MediaWiki does, in a way: it fills in the 
'title' attribute with the article title of the linked page. Therefore, 
provided the linked page title is sufficiently descriptive of its 
contents, we have our accessibility bases covered.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#link-text

How I feel on other issues:
- <div>s should be used over tables.
- I've never liked the word "hacking," and its interpreted meaning for 
most laypersons is the same thing we call "cracking." I think we should 
avoid using it unless we really know that our audience knows what we 
mean.
- I like non-linked section headers better, just for presentational 
reasons.
- I like the <h2> style headers with the bottom borders. Again, just 
'cause I think it looks great.
- "More" link titles could be either "More..." or "More on working with 
WordPress..." etc., but I'd have to see the latter rendered on-screen 
to be able to say for sure whether I like it. It might be too 
repetitive, and with link titles fulfilling our accessibility needs, 
the shorter "More..." link would be sufficient. In short, I'd have to 
see.
- Ellipses should be part of the "more"-page link, not after them. This 
attaches the meaning of the ellipsis to the link rather than to the 
list, which as Chris said, does make it look incomplete, if only 
slightly.
- I could go either way on "formatting" vs. "layout," but technically 
Chris is right, formatting is a subset of layout, and "layout" is still 
applicable and more encompassing.
- I saw "House of Flying Daggers" yesterday. It was great.

Cheers,

Morgan