Meeting minutes
'present+
<julierawe> https://
Detailed outcomes for Clear Language
Julie: Today we are wroking on the detailed outcomes that build on the Placeholder Outcomes
Thebreadth of outcomes is based on the user needs. We will go into the details of one outcome
… we are working from the user needs and not going into writing the tests.
Jeanne: That is fine. The document you are referring to is over a year old and predates the updated process of writing Placeholder, Exploratory, Devleoping, etc.
Common Words Outcome
Julie: Common words are used, and any uncommon words are explained.
… user need: I need to understand the language used, including vocabulary
… do we need to also include systax, tense, and other aspects of language.
… user need: I need words to include accents, characters, and diacritics that are necessary to phonetically read the words. This is often needed for speech synthesis and phonetic readers in languages like Arabic and Hebrew.
JohnR: The need is to understand the language. The things that I need to understand the language also takes two bullets -- common words and accents & diacritics
Jeanne: We have Guidelines, then Outcomes, then the user needs, tests and all the other information are split off from there.
Julie: How do we split it up? Is it one outcome with many parts, or is it many discrete outcomes.
… Having 5 or so outcomes will teach better than having one all-incluisive outcome.
… we tailor the user needs so it is clear what user needs explain the Outcome.
… we are doing some combining, because 13 user needs based on the Design Patterns is too much.
Becca: Does it matter if it exactly matches Making Content Usable?
Julie: When we were writing the early version, we just pasted right from Content Usable. But I think now we are refining it more. The more we differ from Content Usable, the harder it will be to get it past COGA. Here it is logical to just shorten and simplify it.
JohnK: propose: I need to understand the meaning of the words used.
Julie: Tests are:
… Uncommon or new words
… Acronyms and abbreviations
… Unnecessary words
… Ambiguous formatting
… Ambiguous pronumciation
<Zakim> jeanne, you wanted to ask if Ambiguous formatting belongs?
jeanne: I think Ambiguous formatting belongs with math
<Becca_Monteleone> Is it perhaps syntax?
<kirkwood> agree with JR
<JohnRochford> Thanks, John K.!
general agreement with moving it to another outcome
<Becca_Monteleone> +1 to moving to sentence strucutre
<kirkwood> agree with moving
Julie: Is there anything missing?
Jeanne: Silver is also writing 1-2 sentence descriptions of the tests.
JohnK: At times, you have to use uncommon words, should there be something about that here.
Julie: that's in the conditional test.
Outcome: Simple sentence structure is used
Julie: User need "I need to understand the sentence structure used, including syntax and tense."
… I need to understand the essential parts of the sentence and not be distracted by unnecessary words or phrases.
Becca: I need all the information to be clearly stated and not to have to guess at details like who is doing what
Julie: This where we have to consider whether to combine or split apart outcomes
Becca: I would advocate keeping them separate them. Metaphor is a different need.
Julie: The longer they get, the less likely they are for people to understand them.
Jeanne: I think that requiring active voice and present tense is restrictive even in English. I thin that what Content Usable says "Use the tense and the voice that is easiest to understand" is the best model.
JohnR: I think the model idea is the best way to go.
Julie: Let's have a sample sentence combining tense and voice.
Becca: The reason we say not to use passive voice, because passive voice does not clearly identify who is supposed to take action. Active tense clearly identifies the subject and object.
<kirkwood> yes should be active voice
[discussion of the details of tense and voice]