atw: Re: Ellipsis
- From: "Ilana Cohney" <Ilana.Cohney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2003 09:53:05 +1100
Petra,
That's interesting because we do not seem to use the ellipses correctly at
all. For example, we have an ellipses following the Save and New buttons
which certainly do not open another sub-function or dialog box. I wonder if
our programmers really know that this is its purpose , or have they been
using it to indicate another word in the function, e.g. Save ... for Save
Record. Our users certainly have no idea what it is for. I wonder if we
would be better off without it.
Ilana
----- Original Message -----
From: "Petra Liverani" <petsky@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 9:43 AM
Subject: atw: Ellipsis
> > Anyway, does anyone know of the significance of using an elipses ( ...)
I
> > have seen them at the end of menu items, tooltips, popup windows and
> dialog
> > boxes. There does not seem to be any consistency about its usage. Some
> > terms such as Save ... or New ... use it while others such as Sort
don't.
> > It seems to be especially popular by programers when naming popup
windows
> > and dialog boxes. I find that they do not add anything to the
> documentation
> > but added clutter. Did you include them when naming menu items and
> windows
> > or leave them out? Should we get rid of them altogether?
>
> Hi Ilana,
>
> The ellipsis indicates that clicking the item will take you to a dialog
box.
> No ellipsis indicates clicking the button will actually perform the
> function. The ellipsis performs the function of letting you know that
simply
> clicking the item is not going to do anything and another step is required
> before a function is performed. If they're not sure what they're doing it
> can make the user feel safe that they won't perform a function by simply
> clicking the button. I have worked on a system (Documentum) where the
> ellipsis was not used like this and I found it a bit disconcerting but
when
> I mentioned it out to other people they hadn't noticed and it didn't
bother
> them.
>
> Regards,
> Petra
>
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