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I wouldn't call the UI confusing, but there is a lot going on.
-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Snow Leopard [mailto:philstokes03 -at- googlemail -dot- com]
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 12:47 PM
To: Phil Snow Leopard
Cc: Cardimon, Craig; 'Brian -dot- Henderson -at- mitchell1 -dot- com'; 'techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com'
Subject: Re: Regarding the "Next" button
Woah!! I'm just going to backtrack on what I just said...
I just recalled that I made a short screencast a couple of weeks ago for someone who needed to know how to change the language in Google docs back to English from Thai. Now Google's various setting pages have quite a mixture of elements, and in the screencast I did say "click the Save' button at the bottom" quite deliberately (rather than just "click 'Save' at the bottom").
I didn't really thing about why I said that till just now, but it does seem to me on reflection to be clearer. The user knows what kind of element to look for if faced with a variety...so, I guess it goes back to just how visually prominent that 'Next' button is.
(witness man beating a hasty retreat from his earlier hasty remarks...)
Phil
On 12 Mar 2012, at 23:35, Phil Snow Leopard wrote:
> There you go then. There's no need to differentiate the elements.
>
> :)
> On 12 Mar 2012, at 23:31, Cardimon, Craig wrote:
>
>> Only buttons are labeled "Next."
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: techwr-l-bounces+ccardimon=m-s-g -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+ccardimon=m-s-g -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
>> Behalf Of Phil Snow Leopard
>> Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 12:32 PM
>> To: Brian -dot- Henderson -at- mitchell1 -dot- com
>> Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>> Subject: Re: Regarding the "Next" button
>>
>> I noted that he said they had both types of elements in the UI, but I didn't see him say that both elements had "next" labels.
>>
>> Where was that?
>> On 12 Mar 2012, at 23:23, <Brian -dot- Henderson -at- mitchell1 -dot- com> wrote:
>>
>>> Here's the problem, though. Craig has said that they actually DO
>>> have both links and buttons on the same screen (Craig, unless
>>> there's a really good reason for that, you need to see if you can
>>> get that changed).
>>>
>>> If I were the user, my first instinct would be that both "Nexts"
>>> would do the same thing. But, I would also have in the back of my
>>> mind that they might not. That little tiny bit of confusion, I
>>> think, warrants some sort of acknowledgement. If for no other reason
>>> than to indicate to your users that you've done it on purpose (and
>>> that maybe your design team isn't a bunch of nitwits).
>>>
>>> -BH
>>>
>>> -----Original Message----- From: Phil Snow Leopard
>>>
>>> It seems unnecessary to me regardless of whether you have links and
>>> buttons on the same page. If your audience won't be able to visually
>>> identify 'Next' on the interface easily, I doubt adding the word
>>> 'button' or 'hyperlink' is going to do anything to help that.
>>>
>>> The only case I can see for including the control word is if there
>>> were two things on the same screen (one button, one hyperlink) that
>>> were both labelled 'Next' (in which case, as Fred said, you have
>>> deeper problems that need sorting out). Otherwise, it's just unnecessary verbiage.
>>>
>>> --
>>>
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