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Voice and spelling
How A Rough Idea's pages sound: plain, specific, and about people and what they make. This is the writing half of the style guide; Foundations is the visual half.
Voice
- Say what a thing does, in the reader's words. "Choose a model", not "Model selection".
- Be specific. Name the model, the number, the page. "Llama 3.1 8B answered in 0.4 seconds" over "the model was fast".
- Write about the relationship. The work is about our lives, how we live them, and the containers we build; a prototype explores that relationship. Never "how machines behave". Decided
- Short sentences, one idea each. No hype: not "seamless", "revolutionary", "unlock" or "leverage".
- Credit what a thing builds on, by name.
Spelling: US English
Decided TJ, October 24, 2026: "why are we using british english? colour??"
| Write | Not |
|---|---|
| color, colored | colour, coloured |
| gray, grayscale | grey, greyscale |
| center, centered | centre, centred |
| behavior | behaviour |
| modeled, labeled, canceled | modelled, labelled, cancelled |
| catalog, dialog | catalogue, dialogue (for a box on screen) |
| analyze, organize, recognize | analyse, organise, recognise |
| license (noun and verb) | licence |
Keep a proper name as its owner spells it, such as an app's "Model Catalogue" tab, until the app renames it.
Dates, numbers and units
- Dates: October 24, 2026; within the year, October 24. Decided
- Numbers: in running text, spell out one to nine; use numerals from 10, and always for measurements, money, percentages and data.
- Units: a space between a number and its unit (16 px, 5 m, 12 s); none before a percent sign (47.02%).
- Probabilities: as percentages with two decimals, as the explorables show them.
- Ranges: an en dash with no spaces (2018–2026); "to" in running text.
Recommended except where marked.