Re: Comments on dialog proposal

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

On Sun, 2 Sep 2001, Liam Quin wrote:
> > For the sake of discussion, Adam prefers:
> >     [Help]             [Undo][Close]
>
> For Close, is the operation I want to hide the windoe so it gets out
> of the way? I assume that if it's a property dialogue whose changes take
> instantly, it is not modal.
>
> If I am right on both counts, maybe "Hide window".

I think "Hide" could be confused with window manager ways of hiding
things. "Hide" to me usually implies "do not show the window but do not
remove/close it". I'd much prefer "Close" for that reason.


> There was a 1970s study (published by DEC in a book on UI design whose
> title I no longer know, sorry, in the early to mid 1980s) indicating
> that there is a subtle problem with "Help".
>
> Asking for help in many cultures is tantamount to an admission of
> personal failure, and causes an ego problem, so people don't do it.
> If you rename the button, "Explain" or, "What's this?", you are placing
> the blame on the coputer for being too cryptic, and people will use the
> facility much more.

I think this is a problem that has to be solved on the l10n level, i.e.
when translating, as this is true for some locales but certainly not for
all of them.

On the other hand, "Help" usually refers to the whole documentation for
the application, and if it only refers to a description about a certain
setting, maybe "Explain" or "What's this?" is better.


> I know this is a little off-topic for button labels, but sometimes it
> helps to look one step further...  I'd suggest, then, maybe
>     [About]             [Undo] [Hide]
> as an alternative for experiments.
>
> The down side to About is that vanity and advertising have caused
> Help->About to tell you nothing about a program, so that people have
> even less trust in help menus and buttons labeled "About".

Yes, I think a lot of experienced users are very much used to "About"
bringing up information about the program, and not being connected to a
certain setting.


Christian