Re: Username or user name (generalized)

Subject: Re: Username or user name (generalized)
From: Dick Margulis <margulisd -at- comcast -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2005 21:17:29 -0400


Steven,

See "The White Knight's Tale" in _Through the Looking-Glass_ for the ultimate guidance in thinking about such issues.

Here's where I come down on this, fully acknowledging that I'm in the minority and may be asked to hand in my tech writer's union card. Oh, that's right: I don't have one. Ah well.

I agree with the practice of using Caps and Lowercase in the doc, no quotes, no font changes, no funky stuff, to refer to on-screen labels and controls. The Update button is a good example. For a more complicated example, the Word Print dialog has a radiobutton labeled, "Current page." I would say in doc, if I had any reason to, "Select Current Page." That is, for a multiword label that appears in sentence case on the UI, I would change it to title case in the doc. This is not a _logical_ policy that I insist everyone else in the world should follow; it's just the way I _prefer_ to handle it (when I'm making the rules).

However, I disagree with your new policy of changing the _contents_ of the labels (other than case). If the label on the UI is "Username," then the word I use in the doc is "Username"--not "User Name." If the label is "UserID," then the doc says, "UserID"--not "User Name" or "User ID" or anything else that is spelled or spaced differently.

My tuppence.

Dick



Steven Jong wrote:



I made these points in my group, and I was outvoted. So I've changed the case and usage of the references to the UI in many places in my 500-page document. (I'm genuinely curious as to how far the policy goes: Should I refer to the User ID field as the User Name field too?) But just as a sanity check, I ask you: am I now an old fogey, out of step with current practice? Is it better to maintain consistent terminology and usage, boldly declaring our independence from inconsistent developers? Or is it better to slavishly follow them, even when they're wrong?



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References:
RE: Username or user name (generalized): From: Steven Jong

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