RE: Describing buttons and fields

[Janice Gelb <janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com>]

"Dick Margulis " <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> So what I'm saying is that I trust the reader to figure
> out that the text transformation I apply to control names
> (using initial caps) does not mean I'm talking about a
> different button.
>

After having emphasized for years that messages and interfaces
had to match the screen text exactly, we finally (with much
wailing and gnashing of teeth) have decided to recommend the
same thing in our style guide. We concluded that readers
were not as likely to be confused about whether the "Open the
Search Tab in the Sidebar When Search Results Are Available"
field was the same as the"Open the Search tab in the Sidebar
when Search results are available" field as they were to be
confused by either (a) the blob of boldface that would be required,
or (b) not using caps at all:

   4. Select Open the Search tab in the Sidebar when search
      results are available.

-- Janice


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