Re: Choosing and managing customer-facing terminology

Subject: Re: Choosing and managing customer-facing terminology
From: Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
To: Julian Cantella <jcantel -at- us -dot- ibm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:50:58 -0700

Our priorities are:

1. Brand identification: if any of our terminology is something that we
have registered or trademarked, that's choice #1.
2. Industry standards: common terms familiar to our expected user base
3. Plain English (or other language): never make up new terms for anything
that already has a name your readers will understand (unless they fit itto
1 or 2 above)
4. Simplified technicalese: if there's no terminology that fits into 1-3
above, take developers' terms and tweak them until you end up with something
that does.

Gene Kim-Eng



On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 10:55 AM, Julian Cantella <jcantel -at- us -dot- ibm -dot- com>wrote:
Hello,

I'm curious about how writers choose terminology that will be exposed to
customers. In particular, I'm thinking about text that is highly visible
and informs the users' view of the product, like embedded assistance in
software documentation.
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References:
Choosing and managing customer-facing terminology: From: Julian Cantella

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