Re: Advice re: Consistency review

Subject: Re: Advice re: Consistency review
From: Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- FS -dot- COM -dot- AU>
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 17:01:02 +0800

Jennifer -

> Now the question: anyone have tips, tricks, advice on how to structure =
> an extensive consistency review? I'm most interested in how to get my =
> ducks in a row before I start...organizational strategies, so to speak. =

A good start would be a company glossary. Collect any official words and
phrases relating to your company's products and services, trademarks,
etc. Show the official spelling, capitalisation, logo. . . whatever
you want to keep consistent. Do a brief one-sentence or one-paragraph
definition.

This glossary will provide useful raw material for preparing marketing
stuff and real glossaries for your product manuals.

To give an example: in our backup product we have occasional trouble
keeping our terms for loading tapes consistent. Backups are nearly
always done to tape, but you could also use diskette, CD, MO, etc.
In the past we've had interchangeable references in the software and
manuals to tapes, volumes, backup media, and (wince) mediums.

A glossary would help software designers and datasheet writers (and
me) to use terms like these correctly and consistently.

Regards
---
Stuart Burnfield This message _Powered by vi_
Functional Software Pty Ltd
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