Arrow Keys or Cursor Keys or...

Subject: Arrow Keys or Cursor Keys or...
From: Andrea Magers <Andrea_Magers -at- NOTES -dot- PW -dot- COM>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 1994 06:42:16 PST

Has anyone had a debate on which term to use for the four keys on your
keyboard with the symbols that point in different directions? My department
has looked in several software user guides and style manuals and found many
inconsistencies. These keys are called direction keys, arrow keys and cursor
control keys (to name the most common). Their use is just as inconsistent
(press, use, move...).
The final vote was five against one to use "arrow keys" because we feel our
users are most familiar with that term (That is who we are writing for,
aren't we?).

For example: Use the DOWN ARROW key to blah, blah, blah.

There may be times when this phrase does not work, depending on what we want
the user to do and how we want to tell them to get there.

What are you using and why?


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