What the heck do I call these things? (grids)

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

The oddly named "ppaul -at- pfs -dot- com" wonders: <<In our online Help, what do I
call a dialog box (i.e., a screen with buttons) that contains a grid of data
records? Do I call it [Dialog Box Title] Grid?  Or [Dialog Box Title] Dialog
Box?  What do I call it if the user must go to a sub-dialog box to add data?
[Dialog Box Title] Records Dialog Box?  What happens when the main screen
and the sub-dialog box have the very same name?>>

First, avoid "grid" or "matrix" or anything similarly techy unless your
audience is accustomed to hearing "grid"; in some industries, that may
indeed be the user's daily jargon, and you need to conform with their usage
preferences for terminology. But to the average user, what they're seeing is
a garden variety "table", and that's the term to use. Second, rather than
emphasizing the object, emphasize the function. Name the dialog box to
provide context, then simply refer to what the user is doing. So for
example: "In the Confusing Interface dialog box, enter random numbers or
letters in the table."

If the table has its own label (and if not, it darn well should have a title
of some sort), be more specific: "... in the Name the Developers table."
That also solves the problem you're having with nested dialog boxes, since
the tables in "child" dialogs (which you called "subdialog boxes") should
have their own unique titles (labels). When that second dialog box pops up
from within the first one, it too should have its own unique name; using my
previous example, this might be "Confusing Interface Level Two" dialog box.
The first part of the name establishes a link to the parent (initial) dialog
box, while the second part differentiates the child from the parent. Since
the second dialog box becomes the focus of attention once you name the
dialog box, all you have to do now is refer to the name of the table. That
name too should differ from the name used in the main dialog box, while
preserving the conceptual link to that main dialog box. Example:
"In the Developer Names dialog box, click the Nicknames button. In the
Developer Names--Nicknames dialog box, enter witty new names for each of the
developers in the Developer Nicknames table."

Note: In this case, you could simply call the subdialog "Nicknames", but you
noted that the interface is complicated, and when that's the case, a slight
redundancy in naming (repeating the main dialog name as part of the
subdialog's name) should help users. Where that name becomes particularly
long, the redundancy may become counterproductive, but hopefully you're not
going to nest your dialog boxes more than 2 deep.

<<To add or view a record, user clicks Add and enters data on a sub-dialog
box.  Often this sub-dialog box has the very same name as the grid dialog
box. So, for example, "Country Names" dialog box opens "Country Names"
dialog box.  Argh.>>

Argh indeed. Point out to the programmers that this is about as sensible as
naming all the commands under the File menu "File" because that's the name
of the menu that accesses those commands. Give each interface object a
unique name, but relate that name to the source of the object if it's
necessary to communicate the hierarchy. In your case, what you'd want to do
here is name the main dialog "Country Names" and the second dialog "Add
Country Names" or something similar.

<<Our standard is to call any screen with buttons a dialog box, and to use
the exact title of the screen.>>

The first part is nonstandard, since a dialog box is something that pops up
above the main screen, and in the vast majority of cases, you cannot do
anything with the main screen until you banish the dialog box by clicking OK
or Cancel. (This is a so-called "modal" interface.) The second part is good,
provided that you follow some of the guidelines I mentioned above to ensure
that everything has a clear, unique name.

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
"User's advocate" online monthly at
www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/usersadvocate.html

"The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is
by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause
accidents."-- Nathaniel Borenstein

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