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The next big idea around organising information is to layer information. Now I’m pretty sure that you have seen this idea of layering, but you might not have called it.
Layering – from big picture to detail
Layering what we’re intending to do here is to provide different layers of information, moving from big picture, broad brush type information, all the way down to fine detail. And we’ll do that deliberately.
And we can do that by perhaps providing different types of documents. We might provide a fact sheet and that might have big picture general type information. And then we might provide another type of document, we might call it a report and that’s got a bit more detail about what we’re talking about, a bit more detail about that topic. And then we might provide a third layer of information which might have some detailed findings or really fine detail.
Help readers choose what they read
The advantage of providing layered information for your reader is that it allows them to choose the level of detail that they need. So for some readers, they just need that big picture information just to get their head around the big ideas, and that’s all they need. They don’t need to be bothered by the finer detail.
For other readers, they will already know the big picture stuff. They need a bit more meat and so they all dive down into one of the lower layers to get that finer detail that they need.
Layering helps when there are multiple audiences
Layering information is one of the ways of starting to address that problem of having multiple readers with different needs encountering your document. Layering doesn’t solve the problem entirely, but it is a good way to start to make sure that people get the information that they need.
Now you can layer information by providing different types of documents. You can also layer information inside a single document. We just use different devices to do that, so our headings and introductory paragraphs will provide big picture information and then our main text will start to explain all that in a bit more detail. And we might have some really fine detail in sidebars, footnotes, appendices – that type of thing inside the document.
Let me show you a couple of examples where that’s been done. This example document was around green offsets. So we’ve got a heading here that tells us what it’s about. It tells us it’s about development without additional environmental impact. The introductory paragraph explains that in a bit more detail. It says green offsets are a way of having both economic development and environmental protection. Development continues, but not at the expense of the environment.
So if I read that heading and the introductory paragraph, I’ve got the big idea. I’ve got the big picture of what this is all about, and for some readers that’ll be enough. Yeah, I just wanted to get a rough idea of what’s going on. I’ll move on to something else.
For other readers, they will want to know a bit more about that. And so they’ll read the main text, which explains how this works out in a bit more detail. And in this case we have another layer of detail. It’s an example here and it’s been put in the sidebar and that’s something else that some readers will read and other readers will ignore.
Here’s another example. This is from a document on load based licencing. The headings across the page provide the big picture. You can see that costs are based on a polluter pays principle and there’s an admin fee and a pollutant load fee. The introductory paragraph explains that in a little more detail.
The main text provides further detail about how that works. And right down the bottom of the page there’s some finer detail that talks about some of the components in the calculations.
So layering information, either by providing different types of documents or by providing different types of content within a single document, is a great way of meeting the needs of your users their information needs.
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