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Time - make "midnight" clearer #268

Open sarawilcox opened 4 years ago

sarawilcox commented 4 years ago

What

Clarify the information about midnight in the section on Time in the content style guide: https://service-manual.nhs.uk/content/numbers-measurements-dates-time#time

The GOV.UK A to Z recommends using "11.59pm" rather than "midnight" when "midnight" might confuse. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/style-guide/a-to-z-of-gov-uk-style#times

Why

I've seen users misunderstand midnight in phrases like "midnight, Friday 25 September", thinking that we mean 24 hours later than we do, for example in service outage messages. (I've also made the mistake myself with travel timetables.)

On the antigen testing page, we used this: "This service will be temporarily unavailable from 11.59pm tonight (Thursday 24 September)."

sarawilcox commented 4 years ago

I'm prepping for the November Style Council meeting. Are we OK with adding the following to the style guide? (It's closely based on the GOV.UK guidance.)

Midnight is the first minute of the day, not the last. Consider using “11:59pm” to avoid confusion about a single, specific time.​

For example, "This service will be temporarily unavailable from 11.59pm on Monday 1 September." can only be read 1 way, but "This service will be temporarily unavailable from midnight on Monday 1 September." could be read as the end of Monday 1 or the end of Tuesday 2 September.

sarawilcox commented 4 years ago

Screenshot_20201101-183724_Twitter Screenshot_20201101-183648_Twitter

sarawilcox commented 4 years ago
Screenshot 2020-11-03 at 08 48 13
sarawilcox commented 4 years ago

At the November Style Council meeting, most people felt that we should not just use “midnight” as it is unclear. Some people felt that 11.59pm is a good way to signify the end of something. Others felt that we should say 12.01am for the start of something. There was also a suggestion that this might be one place where the 24 hour clock could be used by exception: 00.01.

We’ll put this ticket back into the backlog while we collect more evidence.

sarawilcox commented 1 year ago

GOV.UK style guide says the following:

Midnight is the first minute of the day, not the last. You should consider using “11:59pm” to avoid confusion about a single, specific time.

For example, “You must register by 11:59pm on Tuesday 14 June.” can only be read one way, but “You must register by midnight on Tuesday 14 June” can be read in two ways (the end of Monday 13, or end of Tuesday 14).