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John Posada is seeking advice on <<... what to call four fields for a new
function in the application GUI. Since they all involve variations of a
similar concept, they need to "resemble" each other, be two words (three at
most), yet their
differences in meaning clear without too much "brain-effort".>>
That being the case, a good general solution would be to start by extracting
what's common to all four fields and using it as a heading. That way, you
don't have to repeat those heading words for any of the fields themselves.
The second aspect of the solution recognizes that a "maximum of three words"
should be taken to mean that _space_ is limited, not that words are limited
(e.g., you wouldn't be allowed to use even one 60-letter word, but might
well have plenty of room for five three-letter words). Since words average
about 5 letters long, we're looking at a design goal of 15 letters max.,
though you should confirm this limit with the developer. Thus:
<<The four fields are involved with a notification process for renewing
things... The fields indicate the following concepts: [User wants to see all
contracts that expired/will expire...]>>
This suggests the first step: create a heading that says "Display contracts
[or whatever] with expiry dates:" and list the individual options (fields)
beneath it. Since the heading now applies to all the fields, you won't have
to repeat it. Step 2 is to list the fields themselves. To do so, I've
deleted the heading information from the remainder of the text you provided:
<30 days from now
<14 days ago
>60 days from now
>30 days ago.
Notes: Make sure you use the correct symbol here, it might be "less than or
equal to" rather than "less than", for example. If you're worried that your
audience won't know these symbols, you can either replace the symbols with
words (e.g., "<" --> less than) or rely on popups (e.g., tool tips) or
another fast and easy form of context-sensitive help to ensure that users
will be able to learn the meaning.
If space is really tight and you can't use the words, but don't find the
math symbols acceptable, repeat step 1 but this time for the list items
themselves. In this case, you would have two different headings: either
"future items and past items" or "more than and less than". The two latter
seem more suitable as subheadings, so here's a working draft of the final
screen layout:
Display contracts with expiry dates:
More than ___ days
Less than ___ days
[] ago [] from now
Notes: The ___ indicate fields where users type the desired number of days,
and the [] indicate radio buttons or some other form of checkbox to
constrain the results. Layout can obviously be improved, since I'm limited
to ASCII art here, and you could certainly further compress the display; for
example, you might be able to display the field for number of days only
once, at the start. Start with this approach and see where it takes you! For
example, what about:
Display contracts with expiry dates:
[] More than [] Less than
___ days
[] ago [] from now
"Technical writing... requires understanding the audience, understanding
what activities the user wants to accomplish, and translating the often
idiosyncratic and unplanned design into something that appears to make
sense."--Donald Norman, The Invisible Computer
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