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Seeking an end-user term for a browser-side save (nothing saved on server)
Subject:Seeking an end-user term for a browser-side save (nothing saved on server) From:"Stephen Reynolds" <steve_nothome -at- hotmail -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 14 Jan 2002 16:47:56 +0000
Hi all,
We are running into a terminology problem with a web application we are
developing. Perhaps someone out there has suffered the same pains and been
more successful coming up with the right words.
Some of our screens incorporate what appears to be the HTML equivalent of
the dialog boxes we see in conventional desktop applications. For example,
if you want to add someone's contact details to a table of contact details,
you click Add and a "dialog box" layer appears. If you type contact
information into this dialog box and click OK, the layer disappears and a
new contact line appears in the contacts list.
The problem is that our dialog do not act the "desktop" way because our
application a web application. When you click OK, you are not really saving
any information. Instead, you are just adding data to an XML object held in
the web page. To send information to the web server (so doing a real save),
you must click a save button elsewhere on the screen.
There are a number of good reasons (including some usability ones) why we
would like to stick with this current way of manipulating the screen and the
data. However, we recognise that we risk confusing users who might expect
"OK" to effect a save. The simplest solution for us would therefore be to
replace OK with a suitable alternative. We use the "dialog box" approach in
a number of situations, not just adding lines to tables, and our application
is both large and configurable. So we are looking for a generic term. "To be
saved", "Confirm", and the few other ideas we have come up with seem weak
cop outs. Also we need to avoid any ideas that will won't survive
translation into several languages. Can anyone come up with any
possibilities?
My thanks in advance to anyone who rises to the challenge.
Steve Reynolds
steve_nothome -at- hotmail -dot- com
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