MS Manual of Style, disagreements with

[Yvonne DeGraw <yvonne -at- SILCOM -dot- COM>]

Bev Parks wrote:
>It is quite possible that not all people want to be Microsoft zombies.
>There just *may* be a better way out there. Maybe someone at Microsoft
>made a poor decision. It could happen.

I now use the MS Manual of Style for most things. But I've found several
places where I disagree. Here's my pet disagreement...

MS says for menu commands, use one of these (File & Open are bold):

  On the File menu, click Open.
  From the File menu, choose Open.

An alternative I've used and gotten excellent user feedback on is:

  Choose File-->Open.

(File-->Open is bold and --> is a Wingding character or an image.)

In the preface and on first use (maybe first use in each chapter depending
on the manual structure), I explain this style. I've found that users
internalize it either without an explanation or after the first explanation.
For less-experienced audiences, I've also used:

  Choose the File-->Open menu item.

Users say they like this style because they can easily skim for menu
commands in a set of steps. Users and customer support at companies where I
use this style commonly start using it themselves in e-mail messages and bug
reports.

Perhaps many people think about choosing menu commands as one action, and
this supports that thought mode. (They choose Open, and File happens to be
the place where that is located.)

Also, describing cascading menus is less cumbersome. "Choose
Edit-->Sort-->By Name" is a natural extension.

Of course, all I have is anecdotal evidence. I don't have any studies to
back up the advantages of this style. And, since it isn't currently
standard, it depends on your audience and your client.

If MS used this style it would become familiar to all users and the
advantages would be even greater. Anyway, if you like this idea, feel free
to use it. I've seen others use it successfully, too. I'd love to see this
style become more common so I could use it with more clients.

P.S. This isn't a Microsoft/Gates flame. If you can't beat 'em, buy their
stock. I've bought more MS stock than software over the years.

P.P.S. My other disagreements the MS Manual of Style are "email" vs.
"e-mail" and "Select the XXX check box." I prefer to spend a few extra words
to "Put a check mark in the XXX box."
Yvonne DeGraw, Technical Services     o Technical Writing
yvonne -at- silcom -dot- com                     o Online Help
http://www.silcom.com/~yvonne         o Web Documentation
Tel: 805/683-5784                     o Database Publishing
Chair, STC Region 8 Conference: http://stc.org/region8/snb/reg8conf
Santa Barbara, CA       Call for Presentations deadline is June 30.

 TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot-  Send commands
   to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
  Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/  or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html