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-----Original Message-----
From: CJ Daly
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 1:43 PM
Subject: interface editing
>>>>
I'm trying to explain to my boss that I'm do more than just write documentation. I take the interface that the programmer
and the designer have created and I edit the on-screen language, button and field names and change placement of items on the screen. I also edit the text of the error messages to make them more helpful for the users. I don't want to call it interface design because the designer came up with the look & feel and the programmer uses it. I'm editing what's already been created. It's not really quality control/assurance/improvement because I'm not testing the validity of the data itself or streamlining the process of how the data is gathered. I'm not doing any direct testing with users (nor am I focusing on special needs users) so I hesitate to call it usability. I'm looking for a phrase to describe it. Does "interface editing" describe it well enough? Any suggestions?
>>>>
Around these parts, we general call it "GUI review", since at first our suggestions were implemented when the engineer agreed/had the time to actually change things (not ideal, and it means there is some less than ideal legacy ickiness in some language/wording). Since then, they have realized it's easier to just include us on code reviews and let us edit the English text in the files directly, but we still call it "GUI review".
"Linguistic interface reviews/editing" might be another term to use. Stresses that you're not interested mostly in the language being used (stolen from translators - who often do a "linguistic review" of what their translation machine initially spits back out at them).
- V
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