Re: Carrying out

["Kathleen MacDowell" <kathleen -at- writefortheuser -dot- com>]

As an aside, I always avoid using a formulation like "Click Run," which I
think is why I usually say click on Run or (xxx verb). I might even say
"click on the Run button" or whatever is suitable. I realize that this
appears to be verbose, but I suspect that these types of constructions are
processed pretty quickly (mentally), whether the "the" and other niceties
are included or not. But, the advantage to including the extra information
is that there's no doubt about what to do, whereas with more terse
constructions, there can sometimes be doubt.

I'd be interested in hearing if anyone else agrees with me (maybe for some
situations?). From what I've seen, people appear to accept the terse mode,
especially in documenting software.

Regards,

Kathleen


On 5/22/07, Chris Borokowski <athloi -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
>
> You might carry out your laundry, but is this the best
> usage we can find for what is done when a command is
> executed?
>
> Ex: To carry out the command, click Run. The lights on
> your hard drive will flash as it is formatted.
>
> Ex: Click Run to carry out the command, and then back
> up your data.
>
> I don't like "run" either, an "execute" might be too
> formal, but "carry out" continues to bother the heck
> out of me. What do you use when you have to describe
> what happens when a command executes?
>
>
> User Interface design blog
> http://user-advocacy.blogspot.com/
> Code::Design::UI::Consulting
> http://www.dionysius.com/
>
>
>
> --
> Kathleen MacDowell
> www.writefortheuser.com
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