Re: Accelerator and terminology guides?

[Calum Benson <calum benson ireland sun com>]

Christian Rose wrote:
> 
> I know there is a new UI guideline in the works, however, I'd really
> like to know if it will cover topics such as terminology and keyboard
> accelerators.

Those are certainly topics that I would expect to see in any UI
guidelines, yes, although (with one or two honourable exceptions), it
still seems that in the absence of any direction from some sort of style
guide co-ordinator, nobody is actually writing any at the moment.

> What I'm thinking of regarding
> terminology is all things terminology (consistent English terminology
> will not only help users but also documentators and translators), but
> most importantly very delicate decisions like "folder" vs. "directory",
> where a guideline surely would help.

The GNOME documentation team have a glossary list, which is at least
partially translated into several languages and would be a good starting
point for a simpler UI terminology list.  I'm sure it's available online
somewhere, but I can't remember where, maybe Dan can point us at it?

> Are there results from previous user testing on these matters?

It wasn't something that was covered in the usability test we did for
GUADEC, so I can't give you any insight from that I'm afraid.  The
Nautilus guys probably did some user testing on some of the issues like
the "folder" v. "directory" terminology, though, so perhaps they can
comment?

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems