Acronyms & Abbreviations
Acronyms and abbreviations can be appealing as they can potentially communicate information in a more concise way. They exist because it can be tiring to always say or read some longer phrase.
Communication requires that all parties involved consistently understand the terms used. Acronyms and abbreviations can often fall prey to not being consistently understood by all parties. Thus, they are often useful to avoid in contexts where precision and accuracy of communication is important.
That said, never using acronyms or abbreviations can be impractical. Typing out and reading weekly_business_report_in_hypertext_markup_language can be tiring. weekly_business_report_in_html can more concisely get the meaning across to most audiences involved.
For acronyms and abbreviations, consider the guidelines below:
Bonus Tip: Consider Creating Guidelines for Acronym/Abbreviation Usage
Guidelines above are general. If specific acronym/abbreviation usage becomes problematic on your team, create guidelines and/or a list of approved/rejected acronyms/abbreviations. If there are project-specific terms, this can become more important.
