Re: [Usability] Ellipsis on buttons

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Thu, 23 Mar 2006, Shaun McCance wrote:

> On Thu, 2006-03-23 at 14:50 +0000, Alan Horkan wrote:

> > On Thu, 23 Mar 2006, Calum Benson wrote:
> >
> > > On 23 Mar 2006, at 09:26, Joachim Noreiko wrote:
> > >
> > > > How do I describe a button that only says '...' ?
> >
> > You describe it as a bug which must be fixed.
>
> Why isn't it just a combo box?
>
> > > > Eg, in the Keyboard prefs, Layouts tab.
> > >
> > > Probably "Browse" or "Open" depending on the context.  It would be
> > > interesting to know what the accessible description of those buttons
> > > are, as that's what will be read out by a screenreader.  (If they
> > > don't have a proper one, that's a bug.)
> >
> > Buttons should be labelled.

(Rows of buttons with no labels might be better implemented as toolbars.)

> > Developers should be slapped for not properly labelling things.
> > (Reading documentation to find out what things do should be an option not
> > a necessity.)
> >
> > There is no really no excuse, dialogs all need to be able to reflow and
> > resize with different font sizes and themes.  Localisation needs to be
> > done anyway and there really isn't any point cutting corners by not
> > labelling buttons.
>
> Oh, come now.

Ah the trouble with generalisations...

I hope you agree that in this context buttons labelled with only "..." is
not appropriate.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/