While we investigate and start drafting versions of notification strings that are appropriate for SMS length messages, one unknown factor which affects a lot of the notifications (and is out of our control) is the length of placeholders in the lang strings. Although we are also looking into clever usage of URLs to minimise their length, the length of the root domain is also an unknown.

During project discussions we have identified several potential techniques which may help maximise the information presented and readability of SMS notifications, while allowing us to reduce their overall length where required to meet the SMS spec.

The purpose of this technical spike is to implement a slightly simplified proof of concept, which utilises multiple techniques to meet the above criteria on an example lang string, which contains multiple placeholders and a URL. The output of the PoC will give us some practical insights into the effectiveness and required complexity of such process, which we can take into the next phase of the project.

The PoC will use the following example SMS notification string:

New feedback on your submission for #ACTIVITY# in #COURSE#.  

Example outputs will include different combinations of short/long activity and course placeholders, inclusion of a URL appended to the end of the message, and the possibility of the SMS provider supporting long or only short messages (420 vs 140 chars).