LII: Under the Hood

Sometimes the littlest features have the biggest impact.

Some small tweak can vastly enhance the user experience.

Consider, for example, a small but powerful technology:

the indent.

Why do we indent the eCFR?

Hey, the government doesn’t indent their version?

Why do we?

There are reasons.

In a very complex document, indents help you

read better;

see better;

understand better.

Indents

guide the eye

make visible

the shape of the ideas

and the structure

behind the text.

It’s like in school when they taught you to outline.

(Remember outlines?

(Remember school??))

They taught you to put things in an outline format:

I.

A.

1.

a.

etc.

To help you understand

the structure

of the ideas

you were outlining.

The ECFR has a hierarchical structure.

Its natural, inherent structure contains sections

and subsections.

By laying those out visually

we help guide not only

your eye

but also

your mind.

We indent… so you can read.

 

As our regular readers will know, one of the LII’s most-used collections is the Code of Federal Regulations, which is an online version of the official compilation of the regulations published in the Federal Register.  Our edition has lots of useful features, but we’ve regularly gotten one big complaint: it’s out of date. (Our online text is based on the published book, which can be up to a full year behind.)

Well, those seeking up-to-the-minute regulations (well, up-to-the-last-few-days, anyway) are in luck.  The Office of the Federal Register and the GPO have made available, in bulk,  a machine-readable (XML) text of the eCFR, the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations.  The eCFR is unofficial, but it is very much up to date.

So, in order to satisfy  those of you who have been eager to get the latest in great tasting, less-filling, fresh-from-the-oven regulations, we are going to be rolling out our new edition of the CFR, based on the up-to-date eCFR XML,  as we go.  We have put the bare-bones text up as quickly as possible.  Many of you have told us how much you like the value we add to our editions — rest assured that we  will be adding in all the features you value just as soon as we can adapt them to the new data format. While we’re renovating, “CFR Classic” will continue to be available.

Stay tuned on this blog for details about the process of designing, developing, and implementing those features, as well as announcements when they are up and running.  And let us know what you’d like to see added – we always love to hear from you!