Re: Word choice: Exceptions

Subject: Re: Word choice: Exceptions
From: Jan Henning <henning -at- r-l -dot- de>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 09:04:55 +0200


>We are currently referring to this group of errors & warnings as
>"Exceptions." I'm not convinced that this is a common word that will be
>understood by non-technical users. Thoughts?

The best way to find out whether your users will correctly understand the
term is to ask them. If that is not possible, I would work on the
assumption that they would not correctly understand it, which sounds
likely for non-technical people.

As Bill said, the best way to refer to errors is to call them errors and
to warnings, warnings. If this is not possible (e.g., the programmers
refuse to create two dialogs or to add a parameter for the type of
message), you may want to call the dialog "Attention" or something
similar. The exact nature of the problem would then be spelled out in the
message.

Regards
Jan Henning

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Jan Henning
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E-Mail: henning -at- r-l -dot- de, Web: www.r-l.de
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References:
Word choice: Exceptions: From: MacKenzie, Colleen

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