Ellipsis

Subject: Ellipsis
From: geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 12:55:56 -0500

Darla Kennington wondered <<The Windows Interface
Guidelines for Software Design seems to indicate you should
leave the ellipse off of the buttons, but always use them
in menus.>>

First, treat any style guidelines from Microsoft as
suspect... they provide a good starting point, but they're
not the final word on usability. Assuming that you mean
"ellipsis" (...), it makes perfect sense to me to put this
on buttons for the sake of consistency with the menus, but
with one caveat: the ellipsis in menu choices means that
"you'll have to answer some more questions before anything
else happens". If the button functions like "OK" or
"Cancel", and doesn't require further user input to work,
it shouldn't have the ellipsis.

Anyway, if that's the worst user-interface issue you have
to deal with, count yourself lucky. I could tell you
stories...

--Geoff Hart @8^{)} geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.

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