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Subject:IBM Style Guide is no longer available online From:Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- westnet -dot- com -dot- au> To:Techwr-l <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:26:40 +0800 (WST)
Hi Smitha -
This is IBM's internal style guide, which has been used by IBM technical writers for many years. For a short time (a couple of years?) IBM made it publicly available on their web site but it was withdrawn around late 2006.
A later copy was posted briefly on the user-centred design area of ibm.com, probably by a well-meaning person in the UCD group. I assume that it came to the attention of senior legal or TW people within IBM, because it was quickly taken down.
It's a good style guide, but there's nothing in there that's especially applicable to web applications. I strongly recommend the following publications:
Read Me First: A Style Guide for the Computer Industry,
By Sun Technical Publications (and edited stylishly by Techwr-l's own Janice Gelb)
Web application design handbook: best practices for web-based software ,
By Susan L. Fowler, Victor R. Stanwick
Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works
By Ginny Redish
Good luck.
Stuart
___________________________________
At our organization we are looking towards creating a common user experience
for web applications. We would like to adopt industry best practices and in
my research I have across references to *IBM Style guide.*
*But, online I am not able to find the IBM style guide and if any links
point to IBM's designers front page.
In this context I have come across few posts discussing about the IBM style
guide, and wondered if anyone can please guide me to the correct link or
post the document to my mail. *
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