[IxDA Discuss] discuss Digest, Vol 34, Issue 12

[Amnon Dekel]

Hi
Having been part of this list pretty much from day 1 it became public I keep
asking myself how we can make it more usable. As it is now it takes some
serious focus and eyestrain to scroll through it and keep up to date. It's
un-usability seriously hurts the effectiveness of it's utility. How about we
open a small discussion on how to make such list digests more usable (and we
all know that the problem I am describing exists in most (all?) digest
systems. I'll start with some relatively simple suggestions for "fixes"

1. Add hyperlinking

Make the menu at the top link to the articles themselves. Simple HTML
tagging will do that.
Once that is done we should add a link back to the Menu after each article.

2. Add visible signifiers between posts:

Simply adding a wide line + a line break makes browsing much easier
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<br>

3. Use more vertical spacing inside a post:

Posts now are difficult to scan. There vertical structure is:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Name <name at domain.com>
To: name <name at domain.com>, etc
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:03:18 -0700
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] on research.
message body

Just adding  vertical spaces in the same format would make this more
readable:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Name <name at domain.com>
To: name <name at domain.com>, etc
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:03:18 -0700

Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] on research.

message body

4. Add item numbering:

Adding numbers will make it easier to return to a specific post if you get
sidetracked.

Comments?

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Amnon Dekel
Cell: +972 54 813-8160
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