RE: symbolize roles

[mlist -at- safenet-inc -dot- com]

> beverly_robinson -at- datacard -dot- com shared:

> I dislike being forced to learn yet another set of 
> icons/symbols (and their
> meanings) for each program I use. I'm sure I'm not alone.
> 
> I understand and agree with Kevin's proposal to use the same 
> help system
> for all users. In fact, I use a similar system in the help 
> for one of the
> products I support. But rather than cryptic symbols, I would 
> prefer to see
> plain English (or French, Chinese, etc.) words describing role
> applicability. Or, as a compromise, include a label with the symbols.

The benefit of a symbol is that it doesn't need translation.

I agree about the "yet another set...".   
I think, by now, I have my answer as to whether there's 
a generally accepted representation for levels of administrative 
access/control.

I would have thought that there should be, by now, because so 
many different kinds of systems (security, communications, 
databases, industrial plants, etc.) have similar role divisions:

 - there's somebody (or some automatic thing) that does nothing 
 but monitor status and do some hand-waving and shouting if something 
 significant happens

 - there's somebody who performs operational tasks, like collecting 
 and reporting stats, deciding  what "something significant" is,   
 responding to alarms, and performing everday maintenance activities

 - there's somebody who gets to control access and set overall 
 parameters, create accounts, control scope of other users, 
 reset passwords, and do other trusted-guru-like things.

I was hoping to hear from somebody who documents for (or works in) 
those other industries, and not have to re-invent the wheel.
Apparently, the wheel has not actually been invented yet, even 
though it's 2005 ?

One of the other techwriters in our far-flung firm suggested a 
handful of icons that she'd dredged up, with monitor being... 
a monitor screen, operator being a head-and-shoulders stylized 
representation of "guy with hardhat", and admin being a head-
and-shoulders stylized representation of "guy with lab-coat, 
tie and glasses".  Apparently, she didn't view them as being 
politically incorrect (where's "woman-with...").   :-)

But, it turns out that those icons were from a collection 
that's "free for non-commercial use" only.

Anyway, it's not a big deal. Regardless of what they see in the 
Help, users will see at the command-line that they've got a 
greater or lesser (sub)set of the described command set. I was 
merely looking for a nifty visual way to help the user cut 
through the clutter. 

Kevin

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