Re: Effective Arguments for Unique Control Names...?

["Dana Worley" <dana -at- campbellsci -dot- com>]

On 5 Aug 2003 at 12:58, pdenchfield -at- yahoo -dot- com wrote:

> The team that is responsible for designing the user interface assigned
> the same name to two controls (I'll call the controls "C"). Based on
> their experience training new users, this team doesn't see any issue
> with the identical names because each "C" control is related to the
> trigger-control to its left (I'll call them "A" and "B"), as
> illustrated below.

If the controls perform identical functions, then they *should* have 
the same name. For instance, you may have two fields that require 
a directory path and file name, and each field might have a Browse 
button. The Browse button should be called the Browse button in 
both cases. 

However, if the two controls perform different functions, then they 
should most certainly have different names. To do otherwise would 
confuse the reader. Not only would this be hard to document, it 
would be even more difficult to support over the phone.

We had a similar argument with two menu items, which were 
accessed from different places in the application, called "Terminal 
Emulator". Each opened a different window, and each was used for 
a different purpose. We successfully argued to have one remain 
"Terminal Emulator" and the other renamed to "Remote Keyboard".

Dana W.