The blank sheet of paper rule

by ian on July 13, 2010

Throughout this training I refer to the ‘blank sheet rule’ or the ‘blank sheet of paper rule’.

Since it keeps coming up, I thought a little explanation might be in order.

The blank sheet of paper rule: One atomic piece of information – one piece of information that forms one ‘chunk’ of a page or article – should, when written on a blank sheet of paper, tell a stranger exactly what they’ll see if they go to that page or article.

It’s all about context:

A title tag should make sense when taken out of context. Ideally, so should the text of a link, an image caption and even an image filename.

Get it? If not, post to the Q&A and I’ll fill in any gaps.

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