RE: Display, Displays, or Appears

["Hemstreet, Deborah" <DHemstreet -at- kaydon -dot- com>]

Hi Tim,

I've had this argument with colleagues lots of times.... And usually
won... 

1. Click **XYZ** on the Main Menu.  (the ** means you would format this
as a command)
   The ABC dialog box appears.
2. In the ABC dialog box, click **Update**. 
   The data is updated... (or whatever. 

Rationale:

- brevity - use as few words as possible 
	> is displayed = 2 words
     > appears = 1 word

- accuracy - the dialog box is not only displayed "To show, make visible
or apparent" (it wasn't hidden) - rather, it has appeared "Come into
sight or view" - nothing was there, now something is there. Also,
display can imply to someone that it is there for you to just look at -
not so....

Finally, in my instructions, I avoid descriptive text as much as
possible ("when you click XYZ on the Main Menu screen the"). Again, give
the end-user as little noise (excess verbiage) as possible.

"When you click XYZ on the Main Menu screen the" = 10 words
"Click xxx on the Main Menu" = 6 (I don't think I would use the word
screen either... Just now handled some documentation where there was a
stand-alone main menu - never considered calling it a screen - but your
application could be different)

Don't mean to sound critical, just want to point out that there is far
more to this question than meets the eye.

Hope this is helpful.

Deborah

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