RE: Click X, or click the X button?

["Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>]

Robert Lauriston wrote:
 
> I use bold for anything the user has to click or select. I find help
> formatted that way easier to skim.

Likewise. Well, actually, I apply a character format (I'm using
FrameMaker) named GUILabel. It's currently defined to make the font
weight bold and leave everything else as is. But if, in the future, we
decide to make interface elements italic or use a different font, all
I'll have to do is change the definition of GUILabel. There's a lot to
be said for consistently using formats/styles instead of ad hoc
formatting. :-) 

> When a menu choice or button label is not in intitial caps, I put
> double quotes around it to distinguish it from running text.

Do you do that _in addition_ to making them bold (or am I
misunderstanding what's bold)? 

I seem to recall a study (one of those that I was skeptical of earlier
<g>) that suggested you should only make one change in appearance, not
multiple changes like bold + quotes, or small caps + italic, or blue +
underline (even though that last one seems pretty popular on the
interwebs). 


Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
------






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