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Our team is having a major disagreement that I hope you can help with. Our
department style guide states the following:
When instructing the user to perform some action on the user interface, use the
term "Select" rather than "Click," "Choose," or "Press."
Use "Click" only when the user must Right-click, to specify such.
The only time Press is used is when the user must interact with the keyboard, as
in "Press Enter."
Recently, our development team created a lexicon of approved terms for the new
user interfaces. According to their lexicon, when instructing a user to take
action on a button (Ok, Cancel, Save, etc) on the user interface, we should use
"Press" rather than "Select" since the button does not have a deselect state.
We feel this is inaccurate because Press indicates a physical action when the
only physical action the user is taking is clicking a mouse button on a
graphical representation of a button on the user interface. We think that
Select works fine for buttons, menu items, etc. It's clear that there is a
choice and the user should select the indicated item. We feel that using Select
in some instances and Press in others would just muddy the waters and make our
documentation look inconsistent (all of our legacy documentation uses Select).
So...I appeal to TECHWR-L for answers/opinions. Do you know of any
authoritative source that dictates user actions according to GUI components? Is
this merely a matter of opinion? Would we be wrong to stick with "Select" and
keep our documentation consistent or are we doing the user a disservice and
using terminology incorrectly (the Microsoft Computer Dictionary lists Select
but not Press).
All input is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help!
Kim
_________________________________
Kim McCarter
Information Design & Development
Harris Corporation, Network Support Division
(321) 724-3497
kmccarte -at- harris -dot- com
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