RE: Interacting with a touch screen

["Boudreaux, Madelyn (GE Healthcare, consultant)" <MadelynBoudreaux -at- ge -dot- com>]

On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 09:04, Sharon Burton <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com>
wrote:

> [snip]
>
> (I remember the QA reviewer who had a thing about the word "must". She

> wouldn't certify a document accurate until every "must" was removed. 
> She didn't like ordering people, she said. So we couldn't tell the 
> users that they must type their username and password to login to the 
> system. She wanted us to say they "should". As tho there were options 
> here. sigh)

Must sounds musty to me. Mary Poppins-ish. But I agree that "should" is
a toothless word to use in its place. Either you have to do something,
or you don't, and entering a password to access a system is the former. 

But more to the point, I wouldn't write, "You must enter your username,"
but rather, "Enter your username." It IS an order, in way. Anyone with
an issue with that should be following the directions on their
chill-pills instead. 

I'd preserve "must" for situations where it really IS a necessary extra
precaution, only in those cases where the user might need a little extra
push to understand that it's not an option to ignore the step or action.


But, I'm sure there are cases when you need to use that construction. 

- Madelyn
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