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RE: What do you call the triangle-twist-open thingie?
Subject:RE: What do you call the triangle-twist-open thingie? From:Lynne Wright <Lynne -dot- Wright -at- tritech -dot- com> To:Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>, "techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 8 Dec 2015 19:53:12 +0000
Yeah... "twist control" and "accordion" would make no sense to the average person.
And most people by now know what the triangle icon is for.
But if I had to include the action in a procedure, I'd go with: "Click the triangle to display options" or "Click the triangle to expand the section"
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=tritech -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=tritech -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Robert Lauriston
Sent: December-08-15 2:41 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: What do you call the triangle-twist-open thingie?
I probably wouldn't refer to it at all. Knowing how to expand things is assumed knowledge for most audiences.
If for some reason I had to call it something, if the control had a tooltip, I'd use that name. If no tooltip, I'd look at the alt text for the image. Barring that, I'd probably say "expand the whatsit by clicking the triangle icon," or if being verbose to make up for a particularly confusing UI, maybe use a triangle dingbat.
I'd never use "twist control" or "accordion."
On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 11:10 AM, John G <john -at- garisons -dot- com> wrote:
> Many web sites these days use a triangle-shaped icon ... click it, and
> it rotates 90 degrees to display something (text, links, etc.) that
> was previously hidden.
>
> I call them "twist controls" but one of my SMEs says they are "accordion"
> controls.
>
> What do my fellow tech whirlers refer to these as?
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