Re: Effective Arguments for Unique Control Names...?

[Susan W. Gallagher <sgallagher5 -at- cox -dot- net>]

You're right, most of the time controls should have
unique names. And you're right, giving controls a unique
name makes them much easier to document. But don't lose
sight of the possibility that the design team is also
right in that using duplicate control names is the best
way to design this particular user interface. Hey! It
*could* happen!  ;-) Especially since you've said that
their decision is based on new user training.

So, try to go with the flow...
   1. Enter the information into A, then click its associated
      C button.
   2. Enter the information into B, then click its associated
      C button.
(and so on)

and in your table:

    C   Used in conjunction with an associated A or B control
        to stamis the fragit you entered. Note that each C 
        works on the A or B directly to its left.
(or something like that)

Please note -- I'm not saying you're wrong; I haven't seen
the interface in question. But keep an open mind and don't 
let your preconceptions get in the way. You may find that 
it's a perfectly usable interface and that there's a 
perfectly reasonable way to document it.

-Sue Gallagher




> 
> From: pdenchfield -at- yahoo -dot- com

>... The team that is responsible for designing the user interface assigned the
> same name to two controls (I'll call the controls "C"). Based on their
> experience training new users, this team doesn't see any issue with the
> identical names because each "C" control is related to the trigger-control
> to its left (I'll call them "A" and "B"), as illustrated below.
> 
> A ? C
> B ? C
> 
> Because of the layout, the team believes users won't have a problem
> figuring out which of the identically-named controls to select.
> 
> But from a user documentation perspective, identically-named controls can
> present a problem. There's the context of the actual procedure and there's
> the context of the table listing the control descriptions...
>