SMOG Calculator

[dubhain]

(Because I'd like to make my debut post with something useful:)

As DW's style manual states that FAQs should have a readability of 8.0-9.0 on the SMOG Readability Scale, and because I really hate trying to calculate such things manually, I refer anyone interested to: The SMOG Calculator.

Also? O hai, everyone.

(Ducks, to avoid bricks and brickbats being thrown at him for the heinous use of lolspeak in a dw_docs post.)

Comments

[foxfirefey]

Interesting!

My one observation is wondering if SMOG works well for specialized vocabularies like ours? I don't know much about the background, so.

[dubhain]

It seems to do fairly well. Just don't put lolspeak through it. It grades it as Harvard Business Review. Which, actually, I find extremely amusing.

[azurelunatic]

Usually for lolspeak, I throw lolcats, not ducks. Though those fly better. Not sure how well they hold captions, though...

[dubhain]

Eeep! The claws!

Quick! Nurse! The screens! *g.*

[silverflight8]

*waves* Hi there!

Hmm, looks like most of the ones I edited are around 10-12, with one horrifying 14 in there. Oh dear.

[denise]

Yeah, the 8-9 score is more an ideal than anything else -- it's not always possible to get it down further! But it's an ideal that we should work towards, at least. Every point we can shave off makes the FAQs that much more accessible.

[silverflight8]

I am mostly worried about the gigantic crossposting FAQ; I know what it's supposed to say and even my eyes start crossing. I think the others just have a problem with overly long sentences (in an attempt to cram information in).

[denise]

Yeah, that's one of the ones that we're going to really go over with a fine toothed comb. It's got a lot of very technical information to shoehorn in!

I think the best approach to that one is maybe to break it up with some bolded headings or something? That way the eye doesn't see AUUUGH WALL OF TEXT. Or maybe even some illustrations, of the settings pages or whatever.

[silverflight8]

Yeah, headings would help. It's also really just about one thing, so not great to split up into separate FAQs. There's also a lot of stuff that can be put into bullets, or even a simple table, I think.

[denise]

*nod* I'm all for fancy formatting tricks to make a wall-o-txt into something more readable!

[dubhain]

Obligatory statement of the obvious: Making sure, of course, they're compatible with mobile and accessibility devices.

[denise]

Oh, yeah, totally. Semantic markup, yadda!

[dreamatdrew]

NOnononono....
Llama first, then duck.

[dubhain]

Actually, I have a userpic for that....

[dreamatdrew]

YAY LLAMA SONG!!
*Squees like a 4 year old on a pixy-stix high*

[cesy]

Oh, the llama song. I remember when I could sing the whole thing from memory and get all the words right.

[pauamma]

I just lost The Game.

[pauamma]

Hi! (Did you ever figure out why your kittypics got miscounted on Scrapbook?)

[dubhain]

Honestly? No. I'd completely forgotten about that, until you mentioned it. *g.*

Also? Hi!