Re: GUI issues

[Donald Le Vie <dlevie -at- VLINE -dot- NET>]

Sean:

I've used "Secrets of Effective GUI Design" by Mark Minasi and Cooper's book
(quoted below) as references in the past when I was involved with GUI
projects. Keep making noise...

Donn Le Vie
Integrated Concepts
P.S. You may want to make this your mantra: "[Programmers] cannot
successfully be asked to design for users because...inevitably, they will
make judgments based on the difficulty of coding and not on the user's real
needs."

Alan Cooper, "About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design"

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brierley, Sean [SMTP:Brierley -at- QUODATA -dot- COM]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 10:36 AM
> To:   TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject:      GUI issues
>
> Hallo:
>
> Are any of you software tech writers involved in assisting with the GUI of
> your software (beyond finding typos)?
>
> My previous experience was that programmers jealously guarded this arena
> and
> wanted no input. However . . .
>
> . . . I am finding quite a few issues at my current company and have made
> noise (I do that). I'm not really getting anywhere other than a polite
> "yes,
> take notes, we must have a meeting on that . . ." with one exception: I
> pitched a minor fit because there are no guidelines for making minor GUI
> changes, such as renaming buttons, tabs, etc., and adding and deleting
> buttons and the like from the GUI. Part of my point was that even though
> such changes did not affect the operation and stability of the software
> function, such changes should be made a big deal to prevent just anyone
> from
> casually making such changes. To help make my point, I noted the eight
> hours
> of capturing screens that I had to re-do because one button was changed
> and
> another added in (no function was added). I further suggested that the GUI
> should become unchangeable, or set in stone, at some defined and
> *announced*
> point prior to shipping--and I recommended that such a date be more than a
> week before shipping <vbg>. Since then, I have been asked my opinion on
> two
> last-minute changes to software I'm not yet documenting <vbg>. This seems
> to
> be symptomatic of small software companies that boast a "flat" management
> structure (rather than hierarchical). Thoughts and experiences in this
> area
> are welcome.
>
> Anyway, my point here is not to rant and rave but to ask: what do you
> think
> is a reasonable limit on the number of words and characters used to label
> a
> GUI feature, such as a button, tab, text field, etc? Can anyone offer a
> reference tome on this (I couldn't find any info in the Windows Interface
> Guidelines for Software Design, but might have missed it)? I'm thinking
> along the lines of three words and 25 characters at most. Thoughts?
>
> Grazie.
>
> Sean
> sean -at- quodata -dot- com
>
>
> From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=
> =
>


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=