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Sample Editorial Review Comments
Review of "Defining Standards for Interactive Web Environments"

Strengths

• Concept is a good one. The section in which you presented guidelines for 2-dimensional space had a strong impact on its meteoric growth and the author implies that the same could happen for 3-dimensional environments.
• The issues raised for standards are good ones, such as standards for iconlinks (just as we have standards in 2-dimensional space for hyperlinks), and a listing of standard perspectives.

Key Issues to Address in a Revision

• Limited number of issues raised (it's as if the topic has not been fully explored, see Suggested Changes for more details).
• Quality of research (as demonstrated through citations and concrete details, the author does seem to know the subject).
• Concreteness: provide more examples and make them more directly relevant to technical communication (see Suggested Changes for more details).

Quality of Research

• Although a reading of the text indicates that the author understands the topic, I only noticed one or two citations, no mentions of original or secondary research on three-dimensional environments, discussions with other designers for three-dimensional environments, or other articles on the topic.
• Also did not see a bibliography, even though a cover letter says it was there.

Relationship to the Audience

Specific Changes Suggested

1. The primary concern is that the article only identifies three standards. Knowing the extensiveness of guidelines for Windows and defacto and real guidelines for the web, wouldn't there be more?
   • Some areas to that immediately come to mind (note first that this list is not exahustive and second, these might not be appropriate, but they're ones that are covered in 2-dimensional space and seem to be applicable to three-dimensional space):
   • Navigation (the author addresses iconlinks, but might identify ones that should be included on every screen, just as file, edit, windows, and help are included on nearly every Windows screen), as well as the use of keyboard and mouse controls
   • Screen layout and design (at least, default choices, as Windows and the web have default choices for typography, and standardized choices for headings--a bit more of an issue when each screen is a visual environment)
   • Handling discrepancies among screen size
   • Conventions, such as placement of iconlinks, captions (which the author calls functional text--more in a moment)
2. Presentation of guidelines: It seems OK, but check out the approach taken to presenting heuristics in the 3rd quarter issue 2000 of Technical Communication. The approach taken by the authors of that issue seem like it might work with the presentation of these guidelines. In it, a guideline is presented as a heading, then followed with descriptive text.
3. Terminology. In addition to record store, there seems to be use of some non-standard terms for which standard ones exist. Here are the ones that stand out:
• Functional text. This is really descriptive text, and the technical term caption -- as common as it is -- is the most appropriate for it. I'd strongly recommend using a known term instead of creating a new one for a concept that is already named.
• Netizen. Although the term is a good one, it is primarily seems to be used in more philosophical contexts, such as articles and essays on privacy on the net and creating community online. In this instance, another term seems to be more appropriate -- user. It is the one that will be best known by the audience. If netizen is more appropriate, then explain why the term user should be jettisoned.
• Viewer. Although a common term, primarily associated with movies. Once again, the term "user" would be more appropriate.
4. Because it primarily talks in the abstract, the article would benefit from specific examples from actual programs. In fact, specific examples of inconsistencies due to the lack of standards would make a more powerful opening than the current one. The examples of the online music store are good, but they're buried in the article. (As an aside, the author calls it a record store but with these stores selling CDs and DVDs, "record" seems to be an anachronistic term).
5. It's unclear whether the section that's the abstract (very first part of the file) is also going to be part of the article. Much of the material is repeated later, such as in the "background" section.
6. For each standard, it would be helpful if the author would follow an almost reference-like standard for presenting the information. It might be helpful to begin with a description of the real world problem to solve, next a description of the standard, and finally, an example of the standard as it is implemented. For example, the author rightly claims that users might misinterpret a 3-dimensional scene when calling for the use of captions. But this would benefit from a concrete example (which would most likely be a cute one and add some humor to the reading experience).
7. The second paragraph of the background section: the discussion of new browsing devices seems unclear. Cold it be rewritten and illustrated with examples? For example, what are the different types of information retrieval that come with each new browsing method?
8. In the section on real world scenarios with realism, it's unclear why standards are needed because the types of situations described are unique. Standards would be needed for the components of the displays that are the same in these very different situations.
9. Perhaps examples could be added that specifically relate applications of three-dimensional space to technical communicators. Our readers tend to be very "me" oriented and often do not like to draw connections on their own. Doing the job on their behalf is a great service of the author.

Some possible examples: hardware and service manuals online, in which users could see three-dimensional views of products, interact with the products, and resolve problems; training, not just technical training but realistic, sceario-based soft-skills training; simulation training, such as flight simulators. (If these examples are incorrect, perhaps the author could address that issue.)

10. The author never mentions games, though this use seems to be the primary one for VRML. Is this intentional or an oversight? At the least, games should be mentioned because they're already using 3-dimensional modeling. (And I'm not a user of games.)
11. The author doesn't cite much in the article, but much of it seems ripe for citation or, at the least, descriptions of real user tests. This would add significant credibility to the course.
12. In the "wouldn't this be helpful" category: could the author prepare a brief sidebar listing sources on designing for three-dimensional spaces and examples of three-dimensional spaces on the web? (It's not necessary but would sure be helpful.)