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I have observed when teaching people both beginning and intermediate Windows
that explaining the functional difference for all those things on the screen
makes the person think that they have to remember all those differences and
terms. This generally panics and overwhelms them and they leave with the
idea that this is too complex for them to ever understand. Then they are
afraid of the really simple technology sitting on their desk. They don't use
it because it seems really complicated.
While I have done no formal research, in every case when these things were
carefully explained to people, they carefully took notes because they
thought all this was important. And in every case, they kept trying to
identify what the thing was [Oh, this is a spin-box] rather than what they
should do with it [I need to type the number of pages to print]. They got
bogged down in the trivia and couldn't focus on the task at hand.
The point to all this that you can easily overwhelm people with the trivia
of the technology. Those who are more expert know what all that stuff is and
don't need to be told. Those who don't know can and do get overwhelmed and
confused and frightened. I never ever specify the differences between all
that stuff. I use procedures that tell them what to do [from the list,
select...]. It seems to work.
sharon
Sharon Burton
Anthrobytes Consulting
Home of RoboNEWS, the award-winning unofficial RoboHELP Newsletter
www.anthrobytes.com
anthrobytes -at- anthrobytes -dot- com
-----Original Message-----
From: Janice Gelb <janiceg -at- MARVIN -dot- ENG -dot- SUN -dot- COM>
To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU <TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU>
Date: Tuesday, 02 June, 1998 1:15 PM
Subject: Re: conventions
>Kippi Fagerlund wrote:
>>
>> I find using words like spin box, combo box, text field, etc. useful
>> when documenting a user interface. Some of these elements have subtle
>> behavior differences, and if they are described consistently, a user
>> knows something already about how particular things work when
>> encountering a new dialog.
>>
>
>If there are obvious differences that are necessary to understand
>how the element works, then I agree readers can be helped by using
>the names. Mostly, though, I think general terms like "field" and
>"list" are more understandable and do the trick most of the time.
>
>Our style guide calls for things to be described in that detail
>only when necessary for meaning (for example, we don't say
>"pop-up menu" unless there are different sorts of menus in the
>product and the difference in behavior is necessary to note).
>
>-- Janice
>
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>Janice Gelb | The only connection Sun has with this
>janice -dot- gelb -at- eng -dot- sun -dot- com | message is the return address.
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