Naming cells in a grid? (take II)

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Patrick Wright provided additional details: <<I have no control over 
the application design--it's been in use and for sale for many years 
now. It has a large number of usability problems as far as I can 
tell.>>

While this is true, that doesn't mean you can't make suggestions. In my 
experience, developers are usually willing to listen to polite and 
reasonable suggestions for improvement more readily than outright 
criticism.

<<Some notes follow--not trying to argue with you, but rather to 
explain the situation more clearly>>

No worries. Hopefully we'll progressively get closer to an answer that 
helps!

<<The application has over a hundred columns that the user can choose 
to see--the application is for financial information, so columns 
reflect either real or calculated pricing information. For each column, 
there is a default name which is usually abbreviated--my guess is that 
if the user adds it, it doesn't take up too much space by default. 
Users can change column names to their liking.>>

This raises the problem of how you know what the column name is: if the 
default name remains semi-constant, and the user can use that name to 
access the data it contains, then you're best off referring to the 
default name. If nothing remains constant, it's not clear to me how you 
can document it other than "by example". For example, in a spreadsheet 
cell that calculates a mean value, the label might be "Average" but the 
function underlying the cell contents might be "mean(A1:A15)" or 
something similar. In a case like that, you'd use the "Average" label 
as an example of the use of the "mean" function.

<<The problem is the user will usually see the name as the application 
defaults it. If this were a stock pricing application, then a stock's 
closing price on the most recent day of trading might default to 
"ClsPrcR" (honestly). So my question is how to deal with this--some 
columns have default names that are pretty clear, others less so. On 
the other hand, if I always refer to the conceptual name I'm not sure 
if the reference (e.g. which column) will be clear.>>

Perhaps this is a case where the solution is to offer field-level help: 
a tooltips/"What's this?" approach would be ideal, since no matter what 
the user renames the cell, the underlying help ID remains constant. 
This lets the user point at something they want to understand better 
and instantly get the available help for that item. The popup should 
make it very clear what topics to consult in the main online help; for 
example, "See the help topic _Using the mean function_".

<<What I am not sure of is what the user is thinking in this case--I 
have no contact with them, and not sure if the conceptual names given 
to the UI have stuck or not. In my own experience, some of these names 
are pushed by the software vendor but don't stick in the user 
community.>>

If the software is as successful as you've reported, then the users 
have learned to work with the names being promoted by the vendor. They 
may immediately change these to more familiar terms, but they'll at 
least know the names well enough that they can look for them and make 
that change. That being the case, stick with what the users know: the 
default names.

If there's a lookup table somewhere that lets users determine the 
relationship between the original defaults and the current renamed 
versions, making it easy to find that table would be a great help. 
Doubly so if combined with one-click access to the online help for each 
default.

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Geoff Hart   ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)
www.geoff-hart.com
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