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Subject:RE: What do we call this button? From:"Giordano, Connie" <Connie -dot- Giordano -at- FMR -dot- COM> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 18 Oct 2000 15:40:48 -0400
Why not rename the button to something the users will understand?
Documentation cannot cure a bad interface no matter how accurately you
describe it. Push for usability in the design, and accuracy of
documentation is much easier to achieve.
Given that the ellipses button may mean different things in different
functions within the same application, users will grow increasingly annoyed
by trying to remember what it means in THIS function, and do they really
need to use it this time.
The real estate required to change it to something users can understand is
negligible. If that's the only issue preventing the developers from
changing it, then in all likelihood there are even more significant problems
with the UI than the name of a button.
"Tell me and I'll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me,
and I'll understand." - Native American Proverb
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Emory [mailto:danemory -at- primenet -dot- com]
>We have been referring to this as the ellipsis (...) button (e.g. "Click
the
>ellipsis button and select the item from the list"). However, the
developers
>want to call it the list button. We have a colorful former colleague who
>referred to this button as the "three dot button". I suppose we could write
>around a name (e.g., "click the button to the right of the field"), but
this
>adds to the bulkiness of an already very long book.
============================================
Of course most users probably won't know what an ellipsis is,
so that's a confusing name. But "list button" is equally confusiing,
since there is no such named button. Why not just call it what is is,
namely, "Click the ... button to the right of the field"
=
