Getting to the point is something that some people have trouble doing. Techies can be particularly poor at it, as they often have the sort of mind that enjoys getting involved in the workings of the solution, sometimes forgetting the pragmatism that required it in the first place.

And so here are a couple of example pages. Both convey very useful information: they’re CSS tips for dealing with the handling of floated divs, and they’re both tricks that I’ve used a number of times. But take a look at the links and you’ll see the difference.

First we have the trick to clear floats without structural markup (in other words, how to avoid needing a subsequent block marked ‘clear: both;‘ in order to make sure you clear a floated element). The solution is there, but in order to find it you have to start reading through the page, which is more a discussion of how the solution came about than of the solution in practice. The fix is actually about four-fifths of the way down the page, immediately under a heading titled ‘Taming the IE/Mac Float Problem.’ The solution doesn’t warrant its own heading, it’s just the last stage in that fascinating (or not, you choose) process of solving the problem.

Contrast this with Pup’s box flow hack (which is a very handy trick that prevents elements extending behind floated elements). What we have here is a section that clearly indicates the problem, then a section that gives the solution whilst demonstrating its effect. No heavy reading required, and the solution is clearly marked as such. Some nice touches like the low-contrast text in the blue boxes help ensure attention is kept where it should be. Below all this we have the explanation, for anyone who cares about it, but it’s out of the way for those of us who just want the fix. The only fault in the page is that the browser compatibility details should be moved from the bottom up to the top, sitting right under the solution itself. But really, it’s one of my favourite pages on the web simply because, whilst it’s not glamorous, it contains very useful content and it presents it in exactly the right way.

So if you have useful information to impart, think about how other people will use it, not how you arrived at it yourself.