Post date: May 09, 2018 7:24:59 PM
One of the banes of modern life in a technological society is the ubiquity of abbreviations and acronyms appearing in texts, sometimes with seemingly flimsy justification. For instance, one required risk assessment document at the University of Liverpool is labeled "DSE WORKSTATION AND USER RISK ASSESSMENT" but DSE is defined nowhere in the document. It is hard to understand why it is even necessary to use this abbreviation, as the title could easily be formatted on two lines, and the abbreviation does not appear elsewhere in the document.
Humane documents such as instructions, guidance, forms, etc., would replace abbreviations, codes, jargon words and similar barriers to understanding with spelled out words or definitions, or at least prominently introduce and define them when they are first used in each document, which is the minimal standard in pre-computer documents. It would be more helpful to link to an explanation. In some situations, this may be less helpful than simply spelling out an abbreviation, but it will often be essential for jargon words. The emerging convention is that such definitions or quick expositions are given in pop-up or floating hints rather than as separate web pages to which a browser must navigate. To be most humane, these conventions would apply to any abbreviation or technical term whenever and wherever they may appear in the document.