RE: Typographical treatment of GUI components

Subject: RE: Typographical treatment of GUI components
From: "Kirsch, Gabrielle" <Gabrielle -dot- Kirsch -at- wamu -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 17:03:57 -0700



On a somewhat related note...

At my current job there are mountains of existing training documents
with procedures where the action (verb) has been treated differently
typographically. So for example "Click the Apply button" becomes
"<bold><small caps> Click </bold></small caps> the apply button."

Needless to say, I find this convention awkward and unnecessary. These
are simple procedures and the action is almost always either click,
press, or enter. However, it is an established style here and it is
going to be difficult for me to convince people to change. Does anyone
have any ammunition for me? Has anyone seen this before?

Thanks,
gabrielle


-----Original Message-----
From: Dick Margulis [mailto:margulis -at- fiam -dot- net]
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 4:10 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Typographical treatment of GUI components



Stephen,

My approach to this topic has evolved. I used to have a key at the
beginning of a manual carefully explaining all the different
typographical conventions for menu items, buttons, code, yadayada. I was
meticulous in checking that I coded each element properly and put out as
nearly error-free a manual as I was capable of. And I am a good enough
designer that the pages looked okay, too. I have moved in stages,
though, to my present point of view that all that effort was not helping
the reader much, if at all--that mostly it was distracting.

With Web applications and with nearly all documentation being read on a
low-resolution device with poor typographic controls, I've come to see
that Tufte's approach is perfectly sensible. It is grounded, after all,
in psychology, not esthetics.

As nobody has yet complained to me, I'm confident that it works well
enough.

Can I imagine types of documentation where that approach would not meet
the needs of the audience and bolding the names of the screen controls
would work better? Yes, I can. And many list members may be in such
situations. So I am not proposing that my current approach is the best
for everyone. I'm just saying it works for me now.

Dick



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