Re: [Usability] Question on Don't vs Do not

[Gediminas Paulauskas <menesis delfi lt>]

Chris Chabot wrote:
> A friend of mine, who is a non native-english speaking person, was 
> playing around with the gnome 2 alpha desktop, and he noted that it was 
> quite confusing for him that the save dialog he was presented with when 
> he quit gedit2 and one of the buttons was labeled "Don't save and quit".
>
> Although this is perfectly valid english, non native speakers often 
> confuse "Don't" and "Do", however, they have no problems with "Do not" 
> and "Do". (something about pulling together the words, which can be 
> confusing if its not your native language).

This dialog should have buttons

[Cancel] [Don't save] [Save]

I doubt it is hard to tell which of buttons saves... There is no such
button as "Do save".

"Don't save and quit" is too long caption for a button, and not very clear. 
Does it mean "Do not save and do not quit" or "Do not save, just quit"?

There is not much difference "do not" vs. "don't", "is not" vs. "isn't". 
OTOH, "it's" or "I'd" are much less clear that "it is", "it has",
"its", or "I should", "I had", "I would".

--
Gediminas