I wonder if this module should be added as part of the coder module. I admit I haven't looked at the code, so can't say how easy that would be. It's probably not realistic to add it to Drupal 6 version of coder, but may be possible for Drupal 7.<div>
<br></div><div>Cheers,</div><div>Stella<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 9:35 AM, Bart Feenstra <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:drupal-documentation@nederdev.nl">drupal-documentation@nederdev.nl</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">Hi all!<br>
<br>
The last weeks I have been busy working on UX stuff in Drupal. Part of the work I've done is rewrite texts - or remove them. A lot of texts in both core and contrib are unnecessary, too complicated and long or add redundant information to pages. I am working on <a href="http://drupal.org/project/atr" target="_blank">http://drupal.org/project/atr</a> to automatically review texts used in the code (it will be able to review translations in the near future). Plans are to set it up on t.d.o when it's done and make it create text reviews of patches, like SimpleTest already tests patches, and existing code.<br>
<br>
At this moment ATR checks for strings that contain blacklisted words and strings that are similar. I assume the idea behind a blacklist is known to all of you. The similarity check is intended to prevent (near) duplicate text from being used to improve consistency and decrease efforts needed to translate Drupal (Less _is_ more in this case).<br>
<br>
I want to create a handbook page containing guidelines for developers on writing texts. Proposals:<br>
- Avoid certain words or phrases (the blacklist, yet to be determined).<br>
- Prevent duplicate texts (the similarity check).<br>
- Don't use subordinate clauses unless absolutely necessary.<br>
- Form element descriptions are no must. In most cases a title should be sufficient. If not, don't repeat the same thing the title explains to the user already.<br>
- Don't use terms like "Advanced options". These don't tell the user what it means, just that the writer thinks this stuff is rocket science. Unfortunately nobody can tell you if you're a scientist capable of this stuff until you actually view the options, rendering the label useless.<br>
- If you're not a native speaker of English, make sure your texts get reviewed by someone who is. If you are, do the same.<br>
- Don't tell users how they should use your stuff through the UI. Just tell them what it does. Background information and tips belong in the documentation (help texts, handbooks).<br>
<br>
Some guidelines may seem so simple that one would assume everybody knows about them. They don't. A lot of developers are great at programming cool stuff, but find it hard to write proper texts or make good UIs. This handbook page is intended as an easy reference for those people.<br>
<br>
Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think :)<br>
<br>
Bart<br>
Xano<br><font color="#888888">
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