Re: FW: Re: Definition of wizard - from "Alice in Wonderland"???

Subject: Re: FW: Re: Definition of wizard - from "Alice in Wonderland"???
From: Beth Agnew <beth -dot- agnew -at- senecac -dot- on -dot- ca>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2005 10:19:10 -0400


Edwin's right -- wizards do certain tasks for you. They are particularly useful for getting the user more quickly from one place to another in the program. Advanced users tend to bypass wizards to do things their own way. I prefer to give users the choice to use the wizard or hide it/turn it off.

Some programs have what is really input assistance. Even though it's called a wizard, all it does is open a pick list, show you a file browser, or give you choice to make, it doesn't really do any tasks for you. To me, that is not a wizard. In Excel, for example, being able to select a function from a list and then select the cells or values to build that function, is not really a wizard. You have to know about functions in order to do that operation. A wizard would ask you what you wanted the function to accomplish, and then build it for you.
--Beth

Edwin Skau wrote:

Something like that. Wizards essentially automate a batch of user
tasks and have embedded instructions that are triggered by user input.

--
Beth Agnew
Professor, Technical Communication
Seneca College of Applied Arts & Technology
Toronto, ON 416.491.5050 x3133
http://www.tinyurl.com/83u5u


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References:
FW: Re: Definition of wizard - from "Alice in Wonderland"???: From: Rebecca Hopkins
Re: FW: Re: Definition of wizard - from "Alice in Wonderland"???: From: Edwin Skau

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