[Sigia-l] microcontent - a definition?

[Stew Dean]

Can I just say something about words like 'microcontent'.

When it comes to the understanding of a new area of content one of the 
biggest barriers are the terms people use. Often a concept is very 
understandable to someone but the terms are not.  One of the guidelines I 
use in the creation of a user experience is to decode your language. It 
appears terms like 'microcontent' is an attempt to do exactly the opposite. 
It appears there is a trend for people in this field to create more and 
more terms which may impress some but really does alienate others. If it's 
not used in traditional publishing then I don't see the need to add it to 
our brave new world.

To me it is anti-usability to use terms like 'microcontent' - what ever it 
really means. This is one of the examples where Jakob misses the point of 
creating a user experience. It a parallel world those opposed to evolution 
use the terms 'microevolution' and 'macroevolution'.  In reality macro is 
the same as micro but a different scale, something I hope is very obvious, 
the same applies here. Any separation like this is arbitrary. It's easier 
to use the labels for the individual elements of 'micro' content such as 
head lines,  email subjects and story descriptions rather than inventing 
new overall categories that may confuse some. After all there is no strong 
line between micro and macro content.

I just feel it's a case of practicing what we preach. Can we please decode 
our language and avoid some of the pitfalls of our profession.

Cheers

Stew Dean

At 00:24 16/02/2004, Eric Scheid wrote:

>Does anyone have handy a concise definition of the term "microcontent"?
>
>I know what sorts of things are microcontent -- subject lines, link titles,
>page headlines, domain names, etc -- but I don't have a decent definition.
>
>Curiously, Jakob's seminal AlertBox [1] on Microcontent doesn't even offer
>up a definition. WordSpy and WhatIs also lets me down.
>
>e.
>
>
>[1] http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980906.html
>
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Stew Dean
:: www.stewdean.com ::  music :: user experience :: alife ::