AAT ICAS 2340 ✧ representation of traditional date and time formats

this document describes AAT ICAS methods for the representation of traditional date and time formats. please also refer to ISO 8601.

user-centered formats for traditional dates and times

the consistent representation of user-centered formats for dates and times can provide users with increased levels of usability that would otherwise introduce tasks of decoding, deciphering, or searching for time or date information subject to conflicting time and date formats. the use of proper formats can moreover prevent software bugs.

• calendar years—consider use of four places, especially for dates in eras spanning across a century or millennium.
• calendar months—to ensure clear communication and to promote reading ease for dates that are read by people, consider alphabetical or lexical representations of calendar months. spell out the long form of month or use a three-letter short form. the use of an alphabetical or lexical representation of a calendar month moreover avoids the need for format punctuation such as hyphens or commas for purposes of distinguishing calendar days and months.
• order formats—consider the use of Interform (2004 Jan 14) or continental (14 Jan 2004) format orders. AAT ICAS format comparisons find that Interform formats are more practicable for a larger number of different uses.
• calendar days—consider the representation of calendar days to two numerical places for normative expressions of dates.
• yeargroups—consider other meaningful expressions as alternatives to the ordinal form (20th century, 21st century, and so forth.) for decades, centuries, and millennia.
• seconds, minutes, and hours—consider alternative expressions for non-normative uses of terms 'second', 'minute', and 'hour'; for example, 'wait a moment' rather than 'wait a minute'.

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