How much to write

Readers complain that documents are too long. But people also complain when documents are not comprehensive. We have used an analogy with travel to develop a flexible approach to length called 10/100/1000. This means arranging information so that people can easily find the more important things - 10 words on a topic, then 100, then 1000 and so on. The 10/100/1000 approach provides a rationale for many familiar features of documents and a means of measuring and developing them. The paper explains how the approach should improve information retrieval. It also illustrates some ways of using typography and layout to apply the approach within documents.