RE: What the heck do I call these things? (grids)

[ppaul -at- pfs -dot- com]

Geoff:

Thanks for the detailed response.  I really appreciate the information!  

For the first time in four years, my group has the opportunity to truly
overhaul the existing user documentation.  I'm working to update
documentation that was written when the bulk of this stuff was in DOS.
Whoo-hoo.  Hence my interest in figuring out how we should address these
various screens.

		<<First, avoid "grid" or "matrix" or anything similarly
techy unless your audience is accustomed to hearing "grid"; in some
industries, that may indeed be the user's daily jargon, and you need to
conform with their usage preferences for terminology.>>
I agree we should consider renaming the "grids" as "tables."  Though our
users work with "grids," I strongly suspect our application has forced this
term upon them.  Sadly, my group is pretty much regarded as a necessary
annoyance by most of development (sigh), and we've pretty much given up
trying to convince them that we are NOT here to make their lives difficult
or impede the development process.  You'd think Documentation works for the
Enemy.  So, there's not much we can do about the screen names in the near
future, but perhaps we can improve what we've got from the user's
perspective.  I think after all these years our users are nearly immune to
our weirdo, often redundant, screen names.

		<<Where that name becomes particularly long, the redundancy
may become counterproductive, but hopefully you're not going to nest your
dialog boxes more than 2 deep.>>
Too late!  We're already wading 6 deep in places.  Clearly our development
group believes in providing a challenging landscape for the users.  Again,
we're pretty much stuck with the existing arrangement, and must concentrate
instead on making the experience as painless as possible for the user.

		<<The oddly named "ppaul -at- pfs -dot- com <mailto:ppaul -at- pfs -dot- com> "
wonders>>
Speaking of names, sorry about my odd name.  I've never posted to this group
before and wasn't aware that all you'd see is my email address.  FYI, my
name is Paige Paul, which is, by some standards, still a bit odd.  

Thanks again.

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