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Subject:RE: How to explain this? From:"David Downing" <DavidDowning -at- users -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 26 Nov 2002 09:34:37 -0500
I too would just say "Click Search." If there are two ways to do
something -- an easy way and a harder way -- just tell them about the
easy way and never mind the harder way. I used to feel compelled to
explain every possible way of doing something until I realized that just
complicates things.
-----Original Message-----
From: Karen E. Black [mailto:kblack_text -at- hotmail -dot- com]
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 4:55 PM
Subject: How to explain this?
I have a search dialog box in a Windows application. In my training doc,
I
wrote "Click Search" (click the Search button) after the user types a
value
in the search field. The reviewer wants to say "Click Search or (press)
Enter." I object because, what if the focus is on the Close button when
the
user presses Enter? The dialog closes without searching, that's what.
This
can happen if the user presses Tab and shifts the focus.
Also, the users must point and click to select a radio button to choose
a
search type (name, phone number or ID) for the search value they
entered. I
say, if they have to use the mouse to select, they can click Search.
Pressing Tab does not shift the focus to any of the radio buttons.
How do I explain this to the users (they are call centre reps) in a
NOTE:
style in the doc. Or present a better argument to the reviewer?
Thanks in advance,
Karen Black in Toronto, getting that Christmas-y feeling again of
wanting to
rip Santa's head off
"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap
between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were
instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish
squirting out ink." --George Orwell
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