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>If there is a misspelled word (of course this could apply to crazy
programmer abbreviations) on the software screen, would you show the field
name or term in your documentation the way it is represented in the
software?
If the misspelling occurs on a dialog box, menu, or (maybe) button, I'd
spell it correctly in the documentation and not mention it specially ...and
then badger the heck out of the developer to get it changed. I figure
there's no need to call attention to mistakes in the interface (especially
ones that may be easily overlooked by the average user...e.g., peice for
piece). I've also been surprised by a developer correcting a typo at the
last moment (making the doc instantly look like *it* contained the error).
But if the misspelling is so egregious that a user might not understand
that telling them to click the "OK" button maps to "KO" or whatever's
onscreen, you'll have to mention it. Funny aside: I used to work at a
company where a *command* (in a type-it-in command line interface) was
misspelled. So for users to get the command to work, they had to misspell
it the same way. There was no getting around that in documentation; we had
to explain that, yes, we knew it was misspelled, but that was how the
command needed to be entered.
Sarah Kampman
Lead Information Developer
Acorn Systems, Inc.
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