'Some parts of articles are repetitively structured and would suit some automation': ReScript editing issue 2

Page section
Article editor

Heuristic
Efficiency

Description
Articles within a specific source typically have structures which are repeated several times. Users often mark up structures by hand and/or use 'copy and paste'. This sometimes leads to incomplete and/or inaccurate mark-up, slowing the editorial process down and making additional editorial intervention necessary.

Impact severity
High

Recommendation
Part of the set-up process for a project should be the definition of repetitive code structures. It should then be possible for users simply to drop copies of these accurate and complete structures into the article wherever they are needed.

Examples
When attempting to copy the mark-up structure used for one instance of the item person to another instance, users sometimes accidentally omitted parts of the tagging code.

Figure 2—1: the name is repeated in the text with a slight variation in spelling. The risk of transcription inaccuracy  is increased with the temptation to 'cut and paste' and move on.

Quantitative measure

You want to mark-up the text "Evance Jones" as a person. Rather than marking-up by hand, click where you would expect to instruct the system to insert some ready-made mark-up for a person.

Actual question

You want to mark-up the text "Evance Jones" as a person. Rather than marking-up by hand, click where you would expect to instruct the system to insert some ready-made mark-up for a person.

Initial click test result ('before')
November 2011: 120 responses.

Figure 2—2: Before

Development change
Toolbar now includes a single menu for inserting mark-up with elements arranged hierarchically.

Figure 2—3: prominent toolbar with markup device first

Follow-up click test result ('after')
December 2011: 90 responses.

Figure 2—4: After

Reflections
This issue has been met, as shown by the movement of large click groupings from the text and preview 'contexts' to the toolbar function. The extended manuscript image was a red herring, designed to confuse those people who have very little grounding in this type of work - the amount still clicking on the image suggests that there is a need for an initial period of training for quite a number of potential contributors.

Regarding the efficacy of the test, the revised function itself uses a turn of phrase from the test itself ('...ready made mark-up'). That may to a degree, invalidate the findings, if users are mentally 'matching' the question to a part of the page. However, by using as little jargon as possible in this type of test, the software benefits far more from having labelling which is easy to understand, than the test loses in fairness. After all, the questions emanate from qualitative research where the analyst is able to reflect language which they think will be well understood