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Making Good Labels

Follow 3 simple rules: Unique, Standalone, and Human-Readable

Claudia King avatar
Written by Claudia King
Updated over 4 years ago

One lesson that software developers learn is something that experts in other fields don't ever think about: making good variable names.  There's even a role, the Domain Designer, who decides and enforces rules about these.

In Automio, we don't say "variable" because it's too techie.  We call them "Labels".  But they should follow the same rules that developers use for a number of reasons.

How to make good Labels

  1. A good Label must be unique.
    It's important to avoid identical Labels, otherwise the human Authors won't be able to tell two different things apart.  And the software won't either.  So for example "Name" is a bad Label, because there are bound to be more than one in a given Interview. Call it "Debtor Name".
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  2. A good Label must be standalone.
    We can't solve that problem of uniqueness by doing something like "Name 1" and "Name 2", because those can't be understood in isolation.  I can't read "Name 1" and understand what it means without context.
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  3. A good Label must be human-readable.
    It's important that any team member can understand what they are looking at when they look at either the Bot's Flow or an Automio Info Sheet (summaries of the Answers given during an Interview).  So while using the Label "X8Y99C" is unique, it isn't a good idea, because it is meaningless to a human.  

While you may be able to get by now without being strict about Label naming, you won't be able to take advantage of upcoming features of the software without some work.  So do it right now!

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