Re: Ellipsis button - what is it called? -Reply

[Bill Sullivan <bsullivan -at- SMTPLINK -dot- DELTECPOWER -dot- COM>]

Susan W. Gallagher urges:

Don't say "ellipsis" in docs. You create a conceptual stumbling block
that will disrupt the cognitive flow for (my SWAG) about 90% of your
audience. After all, our job is to tell them how to use the software,
*not* to teach them the nuances of punctuation.

My tuppence:

Susan W. Gallagher, author of some of the most brilliant posts ever
to hit a TECHWR-Ler's screen, kind of sticks her foot in it here with
an opinion that is both misdirected and, well . . . if you don't call
an ellipsis an ellipsis and you call it something more likely to be
recognized by people with second grade vocabularies, you are doing
what is known as dumbing down. Do you want to be accused to dumbing
something down? What if your audience is not all lowest common
denominator? What of the smart people whose cognitive flow is
interruptus when you use a term (your dot-dot-dot) that isn't in the
dictionary in place of one that is? Do you want the people who know
better to think you are stupid? Do you want them to think you think
they are stupid?

But the real error here, the misdirected part, is on the developers
and not the technical writers. There should have been a moment when
the developers would have presented their dot-dot-dot key and a
discussion held. Questions like: What do you call a <...>? What's
that? Who are our audience? What do they know of ellipses? Is there a
better way to present this feature? How about a copy test or a
usability test? . . . all should have been asked and answered for the
product and for the audience.

If the ellipsis button had to be there and had to be documented, and
if I didn't feel comfortable with the term, one thing I would do is
have somebody draw (I am not much good at drawing) a picture of the
keyboard or control panel and have a nice big callout that said
Ellipsis Button. I would use Ellipsis Button in a headline, if
possible, and I would put a labelled drawing or screen capture of the
doggone thing in the margin. Shoot, I'd even put that sucker right out
there on the cover if I could, or inside of it.

Bill Sullivan
bsullivan -at- deltecpower -dot- com
San Diego, California
Out, damned dot!--Shakespeare

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