On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 7:53 AM, Jon Robson <jrobson(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Have we got a copy text writer in the team/community
or any copy text
guidelines?
CC'ing Jay (our head of communications) as he has the best brains for
this ... mmm ... brains
Currently on the mobile site in beta mode [1] we have
the text 'Type
your search here...' on the search box before you click on it. This
created (IMO) an interesting discussion [2].
Glad to see that my suggestion of "Tap to search" made it onto there :D
Personally I think we have a chance to be more
inspiring with the
words we use. It would be good to think more about this sort of thing
across mobile to strengthen the MediaWiki/Wikipedia brand.
Do it. Get community members involved BUT keep in mind this *has* to
get translated and a long text string in english will be exceptionally
long in other languages. Thus keep it short. Also, were on mobile
devices here ... anything moderately long even if a word or two longer
is bad. Thus .. keep it short x2. Make those expectations clear if
your going to involve more people.
Little things like copy text can make all the
difference. 'I'm feeling
lucky' on Google for instance rather than 'Go to the top search
result' is fun and meaningful. Likewise we could imagine our 'Random'
button in the main menu saying 'Inspire me' or 'Surprise me'. Facebook
'What's on your mind?' in the update status box is much more
interesting than 'type your status here'.
+1
--tomasz