Anyone who has written any sort of technical book or tutorial will tell you that one of the trickiest bits of doing so is picking the right example page or project to base the tutorial on. The challenge is threefold. Firstly, and most obviously, you need to pick a project that will enable you to cover all the technical points you’re trying to address in the tutorial. Secondly, you want to pick something that’s not going to be a million miles away from an actual task that the user might perform once they’ve learned the skills – it has to be relavent to your target audience. Lastly, it really helps if the subject matter is interesting.

I’m as guilty as anyone of falling foul of that last requirement. Sometimes it’s just too easy to use the example of a corporate web site again and again to illustrate your points. However, we’ve seen it all before and it’s no fun trying to learn from dull, unimaginative material. In response to both this and modern online trends, many authors have switched to using a weblog-type site in their examples, but I fear this may be more constricting, less imaginative and even more tiresome that the famed corporate outing.

It could be that I’m far too paranoid about this and boring examples aren’t actually a problem for most readers. After all, it’s the techniques that are important and in some ways it can be beneficial if the example is so boring that it fades into the background. It’s more important that the reader takes away the technique than remembers the learning experience. So I figure the only way to find out is to ask. Yes, I’m talking to you.

Are corporate web sites and other such run-of-the-mill examples in books a real turn-off? Or do they work just fine? What sort of examples would you actively like to see in a book?

If you hadn’t guessed already, I have a new book underway, so your thoughts count.