Decision: Paragraph indenting
| Thing | Info |
|---|---|
| Relevant features | Content view |
| Date started | 2021-04-12 |
| Date finished | 2021-04-16 |
| Decision status | Done |
| Summary of outcome | Indents |
Reg text is structured into citable paragraphs that contain sub-paragraphs. For example, paragraph (a) can contain paragraphs 1-5, and paragraph 5 can include paragraphs i-iii.
Classic eCFR does not nest indents for paragraphs (every paragraph has the same hanging indent), which matches the paper books:
Beta eCFR has large indents:
Cornell LII has small indents:
What kind of indenting do we want to provide?
What's the right balance between readability and accuracy?
The reg text XML does not provide specific information about how to indent - it just provides what you see on classic eCFR (lists of paragraphs). This means tools that provide indents need to interpret them and display their interpretations. Any automated interpretation can have errors and inconsistencies.
Three experienced reg users talking about classic eCFR:
- "The biggest problem here is that it's not nested. The indents are all the same, so it's hard to tell what sub-paragraph it's on, if you're looking in the middle of this subsection."
- "It takes me a minute to actually figure out, oh, that's two of, one of, B of 611. It's weird. This one [early eRegs demo] gives us a view into that, lets us see how that's nested, which I think is preferable."
- "All regs have to be dry. But the way eCFR is set up - to understand what is a subparagraph of another section. It says paragraph a, subparagraphs I, II - but it’s not indented well - so you’re like wait, did I just move into a new subsection. The regs are so not user friendly...There are some subsections, like 45 CFR 95.611, that have many letters and many numbers under them. And you can go blind trying to figure out what falls under what, you know what I mean?"
For reference: 45 CFR 95.611 in classic eCFR + 45 CFR 95.611 in beta eCFR.
Many experienced reg readers are likely to be accustomed to reading the formatting in classic eCFR and the book. But reg readers (including experienced reg readers) can find it confusing to read the nested paragraphs without the indents as a hint about structure. Our domain SME says that some indenting is needed.
People can arrive at interpretation errors if they don't understand the nesting, especially when skimming the text.
A lot of CMCS staff use classic eCFR, and some use Cornell LII. So far, nobody has mentioned using beta eCFR.
Currently our mockups have small indents, while our live site is matching eCFR and the book (no indents).
No indents reduces our risk of errors, but it means some reg readers will find eRegs harder to read and get confused more often.
We should provide small indents to help readers interpret the regs.
Make a test version of the most sticky and complicated indenting we believe is realistic for our regs and test it with our current design, including the ones where you have italic 1s and 2s.
We have to implement indenting.