Re: Screen captures in multiple lanaguages or just in English? was, "RE: Examples of Minimalist Writing"

[Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>]

I was talking about text-labeled buttons, not icons, following the
distinction Leonard made in the original post: "The icons are easy as
they don't contain words; the buttons present more of a problem since
they feature text (e.g., OK, Cancel, Finish, etc.) and would have to
be translated."

Personally I almost never use toolbar buttons unless there's no
contextual menu (right-click) command or, failing that, regular menu
command.

On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 11:43 AM, John Garison <john -at- garisons -dot- com> wrote:
> Yes. Your idea of an intuitive icon might not be mine ... In specialized
> applications where icons might be a tad esoteric, you might have a situation
> where pictures would be helpful. When an instruction says "click the Change
> Schedule button" I want to be able to see which icon they mean without
> having to try and figure it out. And as far as translation goes, most icons
> remain the same regardless of language. Icon/text combinations may get you
> in trouble, though.
>
> I always try to create a page in Help with every icon and button in the
> application on it along with a definition, and have gotten unsolicited
> feedback that it is a very useful and helpful page for users.
>
> And another thing ... I just got a Mac recently and have had a tough time
> trying to puzzle out what some of the icons mean, and that's probably one of
> the most thoroughly usability researched UIs anywhere. If they can't make it
> foolproof, no one can. And, contrary to some opinions, I ain't just any fool
> ...
>
>
> My 2¢,
>
> John G
>
> Robert Lauriston said the following on 10/5/2009 12:41 PM:
>>
>> Is there any situation where placing a picture of a button is more
>> useful than simply typing the text (which is much faster and cheaper
>> to translate)?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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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