Re: [Usability] HIG Clarification for "Close Without Saving" button

[Patrick Costello <Patrick Costello Sun COM>]

Shaun McCance wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-01-31 at 22:00 -0400, Steven Garrity wrote:
> 
>>I'm working on evaluating (and hopefully improving) the consistency of 
>>save confirmation dialogs in Gnome [1] and there's a bug in the HIG that 
>>is holding me up. [2]
>>
>>As the comments on the bug explain, the problem is that the "Close" and 
>>"Close without Saving" buttons both have "C" as their shortcut key. This 
>>should be relatively simple to resolve.
>>
>>A smaller issue (also mentioned in the bug comments): I'm not sure if 
>>the "w" in "Close without Saving" should be capitalized or not.
>>
>>The HIG says [3] that "Command button labels" should use "header" 
>>capitalization and that means all initial-caps, except for "Prepositions 
>>of three or fewer letters: at, for, by, in, to". So I think "without" 
>>should have an upper-case W. Can anyone confirm/deny this?
> 
> 
> The Gnome Documentation Style Guide agrees with this, and so this is
> probably the best option at this time.  It is worth noting, however,
> that the Chicago Manual of Style does not agree.  The CMS recommends
> against capitalizing any prepositions, unless they are the first word.
> 
> I think it's high time we followed suit on this one.  Breaking from CMS
> should only be done when there is very good reason to do so.
> 
> I'm CC'ing gnome-doc-list to get the rest of the GDP's opinions.
> 
>

An interesting topic, but not as simple as you might think on first sight.

Some references about title rules:

Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition
-------------------------------------

- Lowercase all prepositions in titles, BUT:

- Always uppercase a preposition if it is the first word or the last word.

See section 7.127.

The New York Public Library Writer's Guide to Style and Usage, 1st Edition
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Lowercase those prepositions of four or fewer letters.

See page 216.

Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications, 2nd Edition
-----------------------------------------------------------------

- Lowercase those prepositions of four or fewer letters, BUT:

- Uppercase prepositions that are part of a phrasal verb, eg "Backing Up
Your Disk".

- Always uppercase the first word and the last word, regardless of part of
speech: "Text to Look For".

See page 34.

Sun Editorial Style Guide
-------------------------

- Lowercase those prepositions of fewer than four letters.

See page 25.

GNOME Documentation Style Guide
-------------------------------

Rules relating to prepositions:

- Initial uppercase letter of the first word.
- All lowercase letters for ... prepositions of less than four letters.
- Initial uppercase letter for prepositions of four letters or longer.

See Chapter 3, Headings.

My Thoughts
-----------

The problem is that longer prepositions such as "without" or "between" are
often longer than other words in the title, and therefore strike an odd
note, for example if we apply the CMS guideline:

"What Can You Do without Your Computer?"

or

"Sending Mail between Remote Users"

Readers, who are usually not consciously aware of the different parts of
speech, would notice the different casing on the long preposition. The
casing rule in the above examples draws unnecessary attention to the
preposition, and so reduces the effectiveness of the title. The effect is
even more apparent in a UI label, which is what prompted the original
question, i.e.:

"Close without Saving"

So, balancing up the various reference sources, the nature of the problem,
and taking into consideration our current GDSG and HIG recommendations, I
think we should do the following:

- Decide that this is one instance where we want to depart slightly from
the CMS, i.e. retain the advice to uppercase longer prepositions.

- Expand the guidelines in the GDSG.

The additional guidelines in the GDSG that I would suggest are as follows:

- Uppercase prepositions that are part of a phrasal verb. [As recommended
by the MS MSTP]

- Always uppercase the first word and the last word, regardless of part of
speech. [As recommended by both CMS and MS MSTP]

Therefore, the label in the original message would be:

"Close Without Saving".

Pat