Textual bloopers

Abstract

The typical graphical user interface (GUI) contains a lot of text—the labels for commands in menus or on buttons are mostly text, instructions are almost always text, most user input consists of typing or selecting words and numbers, etc. Software designers may try to minimize the use of text in software, but many concepts simply cannot be expressed without text. Even in the most graphical of user interfaces, text usually plays a role. Textual usability problems are usually easy and cheap to correct. On the other hand, they often have root causes in the development process or organization. Because text plays an important role in user interfaces, there are many ways to use it badly. These are textual bloopers. This chapter describes three categories of textual bloopers, explains why developers sometimes commit them, and provides advice on how to avoid them. Poor writing causes some bloopers. They often result from assigning the writing of text in a GUI to people who are not skilled at that. One of the most common textual bloopers is to be haphazard and inconsistent about which terms are used for what concepts. This makes software much harder to learn.