suggestions for documenting unlabeled fields

Subject: suggestions for documenting unlabeled fields
From: Leslie Johnson <custcomm -at- CADVISION -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:19:56 -0600

Michael Simoni wrote: "How do I refer to these unlabeled controls in
procedures and reference
materials? Any ideas?"

Michael, we run into that frequently, and in many cases, the developers
don't see the problem. We typically tell them that we're going to name the
unlabeled whatever-it-is for the purposes of the documentation. We name it
ourselves (ie. "the Widget Start button"), and then wait for the fall-out
from the developers. Once the smoke clears, we usually have a pretty good
name for whatever it is, even if the name doesn't appear in the
window/dialog/whatever.

We've found that this strategy (for want of a better word) needs a screen
capture with call-outs so that users understand what we mean when we talk
about "the Widget Start button".

This seems to work fairly consistently.

Hope this helps!

Leslie Johnson
S.I. Writes
Calgary, Alberta

From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=


Previous by Author: Re: Task Oriented Documentation For Non-Task-Oriented Software
Next by Author: Re: Ligatures, fi fl
Previous by Thread: suggestions for documenting unlabeled fields
Next by Thread: Re: suggestions for documenting unlabeled fields


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads