© 1994 Nancy C. Mulvany, Bayside Indexing Service
This article was first published in Changing Landscapes of Indexing: the Proceedings of the 26th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Indexers. 1994
In December 1993 I posted a Request for Comments (RFC) about embedded indexing software on three discussion groups on the Internet and in the Indexing Conference on The WELL (see Attachment A). Specifically, I asked if people were satisfied with the embedded indexing tools that they used. I asked people to indicate what tools they used and to indicate any features they would like to see changed or added.
The RFC was posted at the following locations:
The RFC was re-posted by others on other lists. People were asked to respond during Dec. 9-31, 1993. During this period I received 85 comments about embedded indexing tools.
Absolutely no effort was made to conduct a "scientific" survey. Discussions about whether or not these results reflect a fair sample of the population that uses embedded indexing software are pointless. The fact is that during a typically busy time of the year (the Christmas holiday season) I received approximately 185 Kb of comments from people who are users of this type of software. Responses came from throughout the United States and Canada as wells as from England, Germany, Israel, and New Zealand. The results overwhelmingly confirm my own experiences with this type of software.
Question: Are you satisfied with embedded indexing software that you have used?
5% are satisfied (n=4)
95% are not satisfied (n=81)
Satisfied respondents are those who said they were satisfied and/or had no suggestions for improvements in the product(s). Not satisfied respondents are those who said they were not satisfied and/or had suggestions for improvements in the products.
Products Represented
The number following the product name indicates the number of comments received about the product.
Satisfied with the Embedded Indexing Module (n=4; 5%)
Not Satisfied with the Embedded Indexing Module (n=81; 95%)
* It should be noted that the relatively large number of responses about FrameMaker is very likely due to the fact that the RFC was posted to a list devoted to FrameMaker discussion which of course biased the number of responses about FrameMaker.
Many of the respondents included thoughtful comments about features they would like to see added or improvements they would like to see made in embedded indexing software. It is significant that so many respondents took time to compose these comments. This indicates to me a serious concern on the part of users of this type of software. Some memorable comments are included as Attachment B.
While some of the comments are specifically related to a particular product, many other comments are universal and can applied to any tool used for indexing electronic material. I will present the general comments that I consider to be of interest universally. Of course, not all comments apply to all products. I have listed suggestions that for the most part were provided by more than one respondent.
Index entry methods: Many find the methods used to create index entries to be tedious and time consuming. Some prefer a "fill-in the fields" method as seen in Ventura's dialog box or Interleaf's "Levelx" sheet. Others want a method for creating index entries without having to remove their hands from the keyboard.
Index display: Many are frustrated by the not being able to see index entries that have been created previously. Some products allow the writer to see the last few entries created, many would like to be able to see all entries already created. One user comments, "PageMaker's indexing at least lets you see other entries in the same alphabetical range you have made, but forces you to break your index editing task into two modes: editing already existing entries, and then going back and adding tags for new entries. It is really slow."
Index editing: Many, many comments were devoted to the index editing task. Since many programs generate the index as a static document, editing changes must be made in the text files by locating individual tags/index tokens, changing them, and regenerating the index.
Suggestions for improvement include: The generated index should be a dynamic document that is linked to the index tags. Changes made in the index file should be updated in the text file tags. As noted above, this feature is available in PageMaker; it is also available in Describe, a product not mentioned in this survey. It should be possible to spell-check the embedded index entries and globally change entries and their tags.
Citing continuous discussion of a topic: Many complain about the methods used for citing the range of pages on which a topic is discussed. In some programs the method is so tedious that writers do not attempt to provide page ranges (e.g., files, copying, 5-9). Essentially people want an "easy" way to indicate that a discussion begins right here and ends there.
Increase the size of the index window/panel/dialog box
Alphabetizing: Better algorithms that allow index entries to be sorted correctly; sorted faster; ignore leading function words in subentries
Cumulative Indexes: should be easy to merge multiple indexes
Reference Locators: Ability to properly handle modular page numbers (e.g., 3-2) and lettered appendix page numbers (e.g., A-3); reminder of incomplete range references (missing startrange or endrange string)
Index Text Formatting: Ability to retain text formatting in the document in the index entry. Ability to set pre-defined styles, such as all main headings will be capitalized.
Index Document Formatting: automatically take care of bad breaks with "continued" phrases; widow/orphan control; more control over the final index format
Attach a Thesaurus for Vocabulary Control
Pick entries from a list of previous entries
Quickly be able to invert entries (i.e., make the subentry a main heading and the main heading a subentry)
Easily repeat any heading level instead of re-typing
Interactively display all entries with specified string of text
Cross-references: Easy insertion of cross-references; specify their position within the entire entry and for subentries; cumulate multiple cross-references so that they do not appear separately
Automatic Text Processing Tools: Generate a concordance that the writer can edit to create the index. It is interesting to note that most writers requesting this feature insisted on human intervention, noting that a concordance is not an index. One summed up the matter by writing, "The biggest problem with a scheme like this one, though, is the overwhelming potential to implement it poorly."
Display embedded entries in the document in a clear way
First, I want to thank everyone who contributed comments. Second, I want to say that the comments verify previous work that has been done in this area (Mulvany 1990; Wittmann 1991).
The features and functionality requested are all "doable". Many of these features have been incorporated into standalone indexing software for the past 11 years. My company publishes standalone indexing software (Macrex) for IBM PCs. This software is primarily used by indexers indexing from printed pages of text; it does not embed tags in text files. Users of this type of software work with their index in alphabetic order. They are able to reduce keyboarding significantly through the use of dedicated commands for this purpose. Because you can see exactly where an entry will go, it is possible to significantly reduce inconsistencies. Cross-references are verified instantly so that the indexer knows if a cross-reference has been created for an entry that does not exist. It is possible to group together entries that contain specified strings of text. This way the indexer can see all entries for a particular phrase; both main headings and subentries will be displayed.
It is my opinion that the design of embedded indexing tools has been "wrong-headed" from the start. The context has been wrong. The context has been the document being indexed rather than the index being written. With many of the these programs you are indexing in the dark. You cannot easily see the emerging index structure. Imagine your word processor causing each sentence to disappear as soon as it is ended. As you work you are unable to see the sentence in context with other sentences or paragraphs. An overhaul of the user interface design of embedded indexing software is called for.
Problems with incorrect alphabetization, reference locator handling, formatting of bad breaks with indexes are due to sloppiness. There's no excuse for these problems. We solved them with the CP/M version of our software during the days when computers came with 64Kb of memory!
Most of the respondents to the RFC are technical writers; many are writers of computer documentation. The extent to which the unsophisticated nature of embedded indexing tools affect the quality of indexes cannot be underestimated. The importance of the index in computer documentation has been well documented (Grech 1992; Dataquest 1993). Users unable to locate needed information in their manuals pick up the telephone and call technical support. Technical support costs have sky-rocketed throughout the computer industry. It is no surprise that major vendors have all but abandoned free technical support for their customers.
Prior to installing a fee-based support program, WordPerfect Corporation was fielding 20,000 support calls a day (Lewis 1993); that's 5.7 million support calls a year. Of course these large numbers reflect WordPerfect's large installed user base. The Spring 1993 issue of Microsoft's Focus magazine boasts that "one out of every five Microsoft employees" work for Microsoft Product Support Services. That's 20% of their staff; 2,000 product support personnel worldwide. The New York Times article reports that about 25% of WordPerfect's workforce has jobs related to customer service. This is a lot of staff overhead to devote to providing information that often exists in the product documentation package. We can only wonder if good quality indexes in the documentation would decrease the number of support calls.
Many respondents described the methods they used to "get around" the problems in their indexing software. Several confirmed the peculiar use of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel (a spreadsheet program) to produce an index. This strange scenario was described in an issue of the ASI newsletter (Heiret 1993) and prompted one reader to ask, "is [this] a spoof?". No, unfortunately the methods described are not a spoof. Instead these methods are testimony about the clumsiness of embedded indexing tools and the lack of index production management skills.
I myself have seen technical writers sitting in front of $15,000 systems embedding their index entries while they worked from a stack of hand-written index cards. It is difficult to fathom the ultimate cost of inefficient indexing tools. Writers pay in aggravation and time. Users pay in aggravation due to their inability to locate information that does indeed exist. The industry pays in high customer support costs and user dissatisfaction. We all pay when we cannot locate information that we need to perform a task.
The cost of using embedded indexing software begins with the users of this software. Embedded indexing software is heavily used within the technical publications industry; an industry apparently wedded to the notion that embedding index entries is cost effective. In 1991 the worldwide unit shipments for the DOS 5.1 version of WordPerfect were 2.1 million. If I had charged $5,000.00 to index the user manual using dedicated indexing software not embedded indexing software, the unit cost of indexing would have been 0.00238 cents.
Unfortunately most companies do not track the time it takes to produce indexes. In my experience, the few that do keep accurate records arrive at alarming results. For example, one company asked us to bid on a job. They then decided to do the indexing themselves using a popular embedded indexing tool. They tracked the time. After all was said and done, their writers spent a total of 500 hours on a project that we assumed would take one indexer a maximum of 120 hours.
It is sadly ironic that the industry that refuses to improve embedded indexing software suffers from a lack of quality in the indexes for its own technical documentation. It might be worthwhile for product designers to walk down the hall and spend a few days in their own tech. pubs. department. There's no need for specially commissioned focus groups or expensive usability studies. No, the evidence for the needed improvements in embedded indexing software is right under the developers' own roof.
Designers of embedded indexing software would do well to consult the standard references in indexing (The Chicago Manual of Style; Mulvany 1994; British Standard 3700:1988). There are rules and guidelines for presentation of indexes that have been widely ignored by developers. It would also be helpful if designers would speak with professional indexers and find out how we work. Before developers can provide efficient tools they must understand the process of creating authored indexes.
That we find an extremely high level of user dissatisfaction with index authoring tools for printed matter does not bode well for the future of written indexes for online material. We need to recognize the value of hand-crafted information access maps. Since more and more material exists only in electronic format, authored indexes should play an adjunct role with other information retrieval devices to provide access to online information. Users of online help systems and hypertexts are already registering their complaints; the main complaint being that they constantly "feel lost."
The only difference between indexing printed documentation and online material is the presentation format of the index. In the first case the index is presented on paper, in the latter case the index is presented on a computer screen. In regard to indexing electronic material, must we repeat the mistakes made in the design of embedded indexing software for printed media? Or, worse yet, will we simply do without the authored index in the online environment?
REQUEST FOR COMMENTS
(Dec. 9-31, 1993)
I have been told by publishers of major document processing
programs that the reason why their indexing modules are not
enhanced is because users do not complain about the embedded
indexing functions. They interpret the lack of complaints to
indicate satisfaction.
My experience in the field leaves me with an entirely different
perception of user wants and needs in regard to embedded indexing
software. In my consulting capacity with many technical
documentation departments I have yet to find even one group of
technical writers satisfied with their embedded indexing
software. Over the years I have seen departments using a wide
variety of embedded indexing software including WordPerfect,
Microsoft Word, FrameMaker, Interleaf, Ventura Publisher, Script,
etc.
Is my view on this incorrect? Have you no complaints about
embedded indexing software? Are the embedded indexing software
modules contained in document processing software really OK?
It is my opinion that current versions of embedded indexing
software are extremely unsophisticated and tedious to use.
Publishers of this type of software could be doing a much better
job.
I need your help. Think of this as a market survey. I need
evidence. I need data. I need your input. Please give me your
opinion of embedded indexing software. Name the program(s) that
you use.
Are you satisfied?
Do you have any complaints?
What features would you like to see added?
Please deluge me with responses (between now and Dec. 31, 1993).
I will collate all responses. Your input on this topic could make
a very big difference regarding the future development of online
indexing software.
I will post the results of this survey on INDEX-L and the WELL
Indexing Conference.
**********************************************
* *
* Please respond directly to me at: *
* *
* nmulvany@well.sf.ca.us *
* *
**********************************************
This Request for Comments is originally posted on INDEX-L, please
re-post this message on any other appropriate list.
Time is of the essence. Take a few minutes, please share your
thoughts.
Thanks,
-nancy
Nancy Mulvany
Bayside Indexing Service
Kensington, California
(510) 524-4195
nmulvany@well.sf.ca.us
"I suspect that most of us simply figure that existing built-in indexing methods are an evil we have to live with."
"Maybe I just don't realize how much an indexing program should do for me, but I accept a certain amount of brainwork; I just want to deal in a normal fashion with the text that I'm handling."
"If the kind of thought that went into grammar checkers were applied to the indexing problem, we'd all be thrilled-and the result would be much more useful than the grammar checkers."
"We'd all love to see improvements in this facility! There are 30+ writers here and we all tend to weep and moan when indexing."
"Satisfaction?! Hardly....I have complained about their indexing interface in the past, and have offered suggestions as to how it could be improved, but we have yet to see any substantial improvements in it. Perhaps it's low priority because none of the major players have offered anything better, so there's no perception of competition to keep pace with."
"For years I have collared software engineers at trade shows and have been amazed at how little they understand about how writers write indexes."
"Generally indexing is an ill-planned annex to the DTP software....My department wouldn't hesitate to throw money at a company that offered tools to speed up the indexing process."
"Why haven't our indexing tools improved to the same extent that document processing tools have been enhanced by the related technologies?"
"I am frankly disgusted with the shoddy indexing modules built into every word processing package I have tried....I think the reason there are so few complaints about indexing modules is that very few people even understand what a good index is, or how to produce one, so they slavishly follow whatever horrible implementation is decreed by their software package and just think that's what indexing is all about."
"It seems so ironic to me that the part of a book most frequently referred to and relied upon can't benefit from the same iterative writing process as the rest of the book because of boneheaded, inadequate tools. The tools in all programs make it virtually impossible to make an editing pass on an index unless you are an absolute masochist."
"I had the opportunity to work closely with the UI designer and the engineer responsible for the indexing feature. The engineer had never done an index in his life, and although he made some improvements, he just plain balked at many of my suggestions. I had a good mind to sit him down and make him edit the tokens for a 30-page index that needed serious revision and improvement-maybe that would change his mind fast."
"I'm most familiar with ...'s indexing utility. It is virtually useless to me. I've never thought to complain as I assumed that if it were feasible to write better indexing algorithms, it would have been done."
"'Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.' (Victor Hugo)"
British Standard Recommendation for Preparing Indexes to Books, Periodicals and Other Documents (BS 3700:1988). London: British Standards Institution.
The Chicago Manual of Style. 1993. 14th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Dataquest Worldwide Services Group. 1993. Desktop Software Support: User Wants and Needs, 1993 Annual Edition. Framingham, MA: Dataquest Incorporated, p. 124.
Focus on Microsoft® Windows™. Spring 1993, p.19.
Grech, Christine. 1992 "Computer Documentation Doesn't Pass
Muster." PC Computing (April):212-14
Heiret, David. 1993. "Embedded Indexing at Microsoft."
Key Words (SEP/OCT):13-15.
Lewis, Peter H. January 26, 1993. "Needed: Support Groups
for the Users of Support." The New York Times, natl.
edition, B9.
Mulvany, Nancy C. 1990. "Software Tools for Indexing: What
We Need." The Indexer 17 (October):108-13.
------. 1994. Indexing Books. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Wittmann, Cecelia. 1991. "Limitations of Indexing Modules
in Word-processing Software." The Indexer 17 (October):235-38.
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