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Subject:Re: Labels on forms: Abbreviate or use symbols? From:Cheryl Magadieu <cmagadieu -at- gmail -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:16:46 -0500
Our forms typically include quite a few labels. To make the forms easier to
read, we try to avoid two-line labels.
Cheryl
On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 11:10 AM, Meryl R. Cohen <merylster -at- gmail -dot- com>wrote:
> Maybe I'm missing something in your question. Why don't you simply have a
> column header that takes up two lines?
>
> Meryl
>
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 10:57 AM, Cheryl Magadieu <cmagadieu -at- gmail -dot- com>wrote:
>
>> My company's usability standards team has a question about the style for
>> abbreviations and symbols in form labels. Our company's product is online,
>> and the user interface often uses two-column tables to display forms. The
>> forms include sections where users enter data such as patient names,
>> addresses, and phone numbers. Sometimes the form labels are so long that
>> we
>> can't fit them into the allotted space without abbreviating them or using
>> symbols. For example, one label is "Patient Account Number." We're
>> debating
>> whether to abbreviate it as "Patient Account No." or to use the pound
>> symbol: "Patient Account #". Which usage do you think would be more
>> familiar
>> to users, both in the U.S. as well as internationally? I checked a few
>> style
>> guides to see if they provide any guidance, but the only guidance I could
>> find was to avoid abbreviations whenever possible.
>>
>> Cheryl
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>>
>>
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