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RE: Red Button - O MY! (end of that story - for now) - and NEW question
Subject:RE: Red Button - O MY! (end of that story - for now) - and NEW question From:"Leonard C. Porrello" <Leonard -dot- Porrello -at- SoleraTec -dot- com> To:<dvora -at- tech-challenged -dot- com>, "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:29:12 -0700
Will you take them at face value and keep bugging them about the red
button?
Leonard
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+leonard -dot- porrello=soleratec -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+leonard -dot- porrello=soleratec -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- c
om] On Behalf Of Deborah Hemstreet
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 12:21 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Red Button - O MY! (end of that story - for now) - and NEW
question
LOL - It's only Tuesday but sure feels like Friday...
Seems that The Creative Director (TCD) works for a company that has
received awards in usability.
TCD advises that there is "some controversy" about the use of red.
However, in light of the consistent use of red throughout the GUI, and
that this is clearly part of the company's branding, the use of the red
buttons is not disturbing, but contributes to the general color scheme.
I talked with the relative of TCD and told them that, not-withstanding,
I still have some concerns.
They advised me, "well, our user-base is only about 100 people, it does
not seem that this is an issue that poses clear-cut problems. The user
base is familiar with the company, branding, etc. and this should not be
a problem. But, if we find time, I'll see if we can try getting the
button changed to blue, or another color in our branding. Please keep
bugging me about this... we just have so many other concerns...We have
not paid attention to usability in the past, and we really are trying to
improve usability, so please, keep bugging me on these issues. Don't
give up."
Conclusion: We may disagree, but they are starting to soften up and
recognize that the usability info I am offering is valuable. They have
agreed to pay particular attention to how their users respond to this,
and will change the buttons if they become a usability issue (via
support calls/complaints).
Major success: All text is being passed through me to make consistent
for capitalization, expression, terminology, and embedded help in the
GUI is also going to be passed through me!
And that leads to my next question:
Are there any usability studies about how users prefer to see data
displayed on screens? Specifically, if a user has a choice of seeing
several headings collapsed, all of which can be expanded to enter the
desired data, as opposed to all headings on a screen open, but
necessitating a lot of scrolling down... which would the user prefer?
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
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Leonard -dot- Porrello -at- soleratec -dot- com -dot-
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
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