| When you are indexing a document, that is, creating | | | | acronyms should be in all caps. It is great practice to |
| an Index for a document, make sure you observe | | | | repeat every acronym also in its open form, starting |
| the following three golden rules for maximum user | | | | each word with UPPER CASE letter. For example, |
| satisfaction: | | | | repeat "ACS 115" also as "American Cancer Society |
| 1) Limit your Index to a maximum of THREE | | | | 115", but not as "american cancer society 115", etc. |
| indented levels. Human mind starts losing track of the | | | | 3) Make sure all important phrases are CROSS |
| nestled groupings once you cross over into the | | | | INDEXED, cross referenced, under their respective |
| fourth level and beyond. It helps a great deal if every | | | | letters. For example, repeat "space shuttle" also as |
| level has its own styling. For example, the first level | | | | "shuttle, space." In this case both are under the letter |
| could be in BOLD letters, the second level in normal | | | | S. Repeat "welfare state" as "state, welfare" under |
| PLAIN fonts, and the third in plain ITALIC fonts. I'd | | | | the letters W and S, respectively. Do the extra work |
| recommend to use the same font family and not | | | | if you want your users find what they are looking for |
| switch to different fonts in between indentation | | | | easily. Cross-referenced index entries will prevent the |
| levels. | | | | users from thinking. And a user that can go through |
| 2) Always start your indexed words with LOWER | | | | a document, book or manual without thinking is a |
| CASE letters, unless it is an acronym. Lower case | | | | happy user. |
| letters is easier for the human eye to read. But all | | | | |