atw: Re: Touchscreen - buttons, icons, keys, tokens, symbols?

On 7/20/06, Charles_Boyle@xxxxxxxxxx <Charles_Boyle@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

A quick query on touchscreen terminology. We're developing a new product
 that is designed to run on a touchscreen terminal. The entire user
interface will be through the touchscreen (unless they plug in a keyboard, a
mouse, a laptop or dial in remotely, but that's not the issue - yet).


I wrote docs for something similar a few years ago.
The laptop/external keyboard issue was separate from user-docs because only
admin/test/repair staff had that level of access, and therefore had a very
different style of docs.

My question is, What should the active parts of the screen be called? My 
preference at the moment is to call the screen objects -  icons, given that
they are....well, iconic!


It depends on the look'n'feel of the GUI.
The application I referred to earlier ran in Windows but was full-screen and
used graphical icons entirely.  It didn't look like a windows application at
all, so that paradigm didn't fit.  (Under the hood in debug/admin mode, it
did, but that gets back to what I said earlier).

The screen is a resistive touchscreen, therefore I've gone with "Press the 
 XXX icon" - as basic terminology, along with a snapshot of the icon.


Sounds alright.
From memory, I  used terms such as "press" and "touch" interchangeably, but
not "click", "type" or "hit".
You don't even need to refer to them as "buttons" or "icons" if it's clear
what's meant by the name of the button/icon by feature or function (eg:
"Back").
Defining your buttons early in the docs saves headaches.  A page/table with
buttons/icons snipped from screenshots and their names helps enormously.
Establishing this nomenclature at the start reduced confusion, ambiguity,
guess-work and users making-up their own names.

This had a trickle-down effect -- when users phoned for help.  If they said:
"Help, I'm pressing the arrow and nothing's happening," it took longer to
sort-out what they meant than if they said: "The Back button is
unresponsive."

A bit of a spanner in the works is the virtual keyboard that allows you to 
enter information  "Press the enter icon" sounds odd as it's a keyboard
layout; "Press the enter key" associates it with the keyboard theme, but
then it isn't consistent.


I'd stick with the keyboard analogy here, as that's why it's been kludged
into the interface.

HTH,
Damien

--
Damien.Wise@xxxxxxxxx

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