Date format

Purpose

Compile and reconcile all style guides used by three organizations within Dell—Dell Digital Design, Enterprise Design Group, and Information Design and Development—to arrive at a single set of US English content standards for Dell Technologies. Consistency and common standards are a key part of customer experience and trust.

Problem statement

Dell content writers waste time and effort trying to find authoritative style standards for their content​. Competing style guides can also lead to inconsistent customer content, such as casing in button copy and formatting. This can result in reduced trust in our brand.​

Approach

Writers work together across the three organizations to reconcile differences between four style guides and a globalization standard. Each writer assigns themself a topic and presents the proposed guidance to the rest of the team. If there are disagreements about the proposal, a small committee is formed for directional input and decision-making.

Considerations

The first topic I’m resolving is date formats, which has the following requirements:

  • Must align to internationalization and translation requirements from the Global Translation Team (GTT).

  • Provide contextual guidance for when to use long format versus short format.

  • Comply with accessibility standards and best practices.

Dates, and other localization information, rely on coded implementations for globalization. This means that dates are not translated like informative copy, but uses an API call to internationalize the format according to the GTT’s standards. After meeting with both GTT and accessibility team members, we agreed on the following:

  1. Long date format including the day is the both the most understandable and clearest way to show dates.

    • Monday, August 7, 2023

  2. Long date format without the day is equally understandable, but can potentially allow mix ups if the information relies on knowing the day, such as an event.

    • August 7, 2023

  3. Abbreviated long date format is less clear, due to lack of global consistency for three-letter abbreviations. This format should be used minimally, and only in compact spaces such as tables.

    • Aug 7, 2023

  4. Short date format is unclear when it stands alone or when used inline with written copy. Using this format requires disclosing the expected format in close proximity, especially for products that have either global audiences viewing the date or global team members working on the product. For example, if entering 8/1/2023 into an input, the label or helper text must include m/d/yyyy or d/m/yyyy for clarification. Read more about including expected formats in Form instructions on W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiatives.

    • 8/7/2023 (m/d/yyy)

Results

Spell out the date when possible. 

  • Long: Thursday, April 12, 2001.

    Use the long form in emails and in block quotes, cards, and text areas in UI content design. In compact spaces, such as tables, you may use the abbreviated form, Apr 12, 2001, without a period following the abbreviated month. It is useful to include the day in your date format for announcements, events, or scheduled maintenance, especially if the scheduled time carries over to another day.

  • Short: 4/12/2001.

    Use the short form for interactive inputs for UI content design, including text inputs and date pickers, as it is preferred for internationalization. State the expected format in the label to ensure it is always visible to the user. Do not add the expected format as placeholder text in the input as it disappears once users begin typing.

    Accessibility note: placeholder text is not perceivable by screen readers, and therefore is not announced to users.

Recommendations:

  • Drop the leading zero for month and days in the United States.

Do: 8/7/2023

Don’t: 08/07/2023

  • Always present the year with 4-digits instead of 2-digits in both the short and long
    formats. This is to prevent costly corrections to systems and databases (see The Year 2000: Y2K from the Library of Congress).

Do: Monday, August 7, 2023 and 8/7/2023

Don’t: Monday, August 7, ‘23 and 8/7/23

  • As a global business, Dell strives to remain neutral in geopolitical dialogue. Use the term “location” rather than “country”.

  • Use plain numbers for dates (cardinal). Do not add -nd, -th, or -st (ordinal) to numbers.

Sources