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No, IMO it should be intuitively obvious from the design of the elements. That kind of legend is what I call 'teacher-talk'. Users just want to get the job done. Generally, they don't want to be taught, or waste time learning your information architecture. Users just want to get the task done.
On 12 Mar 2012, at 23:50, Cardimon, Craig wrote:
> Should I have a legend somewhere that says just button are labeled Back, Cancel, and Next?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phil Snow Leopard [mailto:philstokes03 -at- googlemail -dot- com]
> Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 12:35 PM
> To: Cardimon, Craig
> Cc: 'Brian -dot- Henderson -at- mitchell1 -dot- com'; 'techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com'
> Subject: Re: Regarding the "Next" button
>
> 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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>>
>> Phil Stokes
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