RE: [Sigia-l] verbs in labels

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Here's a few thoughts:

The fundamental principle to remember is that the actual amount of work - the number of decisions - it takes to arrive at a specific context or operation depends upon the nubmer of variables at hand. The way that you choose to label should reflect the order in which users prefer to make these decisions.

Whenever possible, I use a basic grammar that breaks down to "[action or verb] plus [object or noun]" for labels on buttons, pages, and screens inside applications: examples include "find training courses" or "update your account".
This reflects the notion that most operations consist of an action and an object, plus optional qualifiers: "[download] the [new Miles Davis] [album]". This example requires at least three decisions that might happen in this order; download something > make it an album > make it the {new} Miles Davis album. Many other orders are possible, but if it is the activity of downloading that is the focus of your context, build the decision tree around that activity, and base the labelling on the order in which users make the decisions.

Given the tremendous variations in usage and meaning for ostensibly simple words like 'find', it's best to standardize on a limited set of verbs and use them consistently. The verbs you choose should emerge from research on the goals users have and the language they use to describe those goals (card sorts, etc.).

Of course the utility of this approach does depend on context: when users are choosing from amongst a list of items that are all the same type of thing, (albums for downloading) they've already made one of the two decisions necessary to define the operation, and so you can take the shortcut of only presenting them with the remaining choice - alist of albums by name.

On labelling in general:

When a large number of users employ a specific term, you can use that same specific term with greater confidence - view it as a defacto standard. When users employ many different variations of similar terms to refer to the same thing (get product info, find products, see new products, etc.), a safer bet is to choose the common root (products, product information) that appears in the majority of the variations.

Cheers,
Joe Lamantia

Joe.Lamantia > Information.Architect > PTC
jlamantia_at_ptc.com : 781.370.5173

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter VanDijck [mailto:pvandijck_at_lds.com]
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 4:00 PM
To: Jennifer Oskar
Cc: sigia-l_at_asis.org
Subject: [Sigia-l] verbs in labels

Does anyone have thoughts or references about using verbs throughout in
labels? Like: "Adjust Personal Data" instead of "Personal Data". Does
anyone know of a product/site that has attempted that?

PeterV
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