Re: Menu guidelines updated

[Murray Cumming <Murray_Cumming BetaResearch de>]

"James M. Cape" wrote:
> 
> On 03 Aug 2001 06:43:01 -0500, James M. Cape wrote:
> > On 03 Aug 2001 03:52:17 -0700, Seth Nickell wrote:
> > > > "Reload from Disk" is also very descriptive, but it's usually better to
> > > > avoid mentioning physical parts of the system like "disks"-- the user
> > > > may have no idea their document is actually being stored on a disk, it
> > > > may just be somewhere "in the computer" or "on the network" as far as
> > > > they're concerned.  And in the case of Linux-based PDAs, for example,
> > > > your documents aren't really being stored on a disk in the conventional
> > > > sense anyway  :o)
> > >
> > > "Reload from disk" in my mind fails to capture that your current changes
> > > will be lost in favour of what was last saved. That the data is on disk
> > > or otherwise is somewhat irrelevant.
> > >
> > > -Seth
> >
> > "Reload From Saved"?
> >
> > I smell another opportunity for a user test :-)
> 
> I know, I know, not Emily Post to reply to one's own message, but I just
> had an idea. Why call it revert or reload, or anything similar at all. I
> just thought about what an average MS Word user would do if I handed
> them a sheet that said
> 
> 1. "Open the document, type <lots of text here>"
> 2. Now, make the document the same as when you opened it
> 
> I instantly imagined what most users would do:
> Go to "Edit"/"Undo", repeating this until it was the same as when they
> opened it. So why not put it in Edit? "Undo until last saved" or
> something?

No, I believe that most users would just close the document and reopen
it - because opening/closing is a more basic skill than undoing. Lots of
people don't know that they can undo.

On the other hand, maybe moost people would press power-off and replay
their previous actions.

-- 
Murray Cumming
www.murrayc.com
murrayc usa net