Questions about the way something should be written for users to read and comprehend
5
votes
5answers
135 views
What is the most familiar wording of linking to a PDF file?
For certain industries and user-bases, it can make sense to include a link to a PDF version of a HTML web page — so that visitors can either view or download it.
From a recognizability and ...
15
votes
6answers
680 views
What is the recommended wording for a generic error message
What would be the best wording for a generic error message?
With generic error message I mean a message for an error that has occured but there are no details on what the error is or how to recover ...
24
votes
7answers
873 views
How to phrase button labels?
How should I phrase the following button labels:
"Import image" or "Import an image"?
"Create app" or "Create an app"?
"Add description" or "Add a description"?
If you could also supply the ...
2
votes
6answers
125 views
Best to say 'swipe up' or 'swipe down'?
I am building an app (iOS) which consists of paged tiles which the user has to pan through.
My question: When I need to tell the user to move the content up to view the content below it, should I say ...
5
votes
5answers
292 views
“Millions of colors” vs “24-bit”: should technical concepts be simplified to ease understanding at the cost of precision?
Macs indicate 24-bit color depth by using the term "millions of colors", while Windows calls it "24-bit" or "32-bit". (I'm aware that Windows "32-bit" color simply adds an alpha channel that doesn't ...
6
votes
3answers
107 views
Graphic content label
I'm working on a project in which we are labeling content to inform, not warn, the user (editors) that videos contain nudity, death, violence or adult language.
We are not trying to discourage ...
3
votes
3answers
143 views
Contact page. Which is the better wording?
What is the most appropriate Contact page title for a website?
Contact, Contacts, Contact us or other?
Contacts is used, among others, in iOS and Android.
Seems to me more related to a list of ...
4
votes
1answer
121 views
Startup screens: “Show this page at startup” vs. “Don't show this on startup”
I'm currently working on an iOS app where the user is presented with a startup screen until the user disables it.
I am insisting that this startup screen should have an already ticked checkbox that ...
4
votes
3answers
111 views
Word for a group of numbers?
I have a list of different numbers/ID's related to a company and right now I am using the title ID's to group them but I feel that this title may not be the best. Does anyone know of any better words ...
1
vote
1answer
52 views
How does a friendly, personal feeling affect a website or web app user's experience? [closed]
I am under the impression that if you try to make a "human" feel to a particular website or app, that a user will find it easier to use.
After a short discussion with a colleague, I realize this may ...
7
votes
3answers
203 views
When offering options, at which position in a sentence should be the desirable one?
When I ask the user a question with two options of which I want the user to choose a specific one, should I formulate the sentence so that the desired option it the latter or the other way around?
...
9
votes
4answers
216 views
What do you think is a better label “New” or “Add”
At the moment I am building a web application that stores a lot of data inside of tables. In each of the pages containing the tables the users have many actions; they can add, delete, or edit the ...
5
votes
5answers
169 views
Best wording of “blank” option for an optional select?
For <select> elements that require the user to select at least one option, basic wording for the "blank" option is fairly easy: "Select..." or something similar.
However, for <select> ...
3
votes
2answers
123 views
Is there a better label for the “OK” button in message boxes with just one button?
Having read "Should I use Yes/No or Ok/Cancel on my message box?", I do understand that message boxes with two or more buttons should use verbs instead of e.g. Yes and No.
To further improve the user ...
9
votes
5answers
266 views
Word to indicate moving from “Draft” to “Live”
I'm looking for a friendly, widely understood word to indicate that something is going from a "Draft" state into a "Live" state.
The difference between these two states is that once it is "Live" ...
7
votes
3answers
153 views
“Activate” / “Enable” + “noun verbing” or simply “Verb noun”?
A popular chatting application has the global option "Enable buddy icon animation". Would this be better phrased as "Animate buddy icon" or not? And if so, is this a general rule? For example, ...
6
votes
4answers
194 views
Why write “Polite Notice” on a sign?
I was parking my car this morning, and saw a sign attached to someone's front gate...
Polite Notice:
Do not park in front of these gates at any time.
...and I wondered about why the author ...
5
votes
2answers
72 views
Wording for rating something: imply next action?
Imagine an app that presents a number of questions and answers to a user. After each question the user can rate the answer (easy/medium/hard).
Based on the rating, the question is either:
Not shown ...
3
votes
2answers
87 views
How does individual vs pluralistic language affect community?
Pluralistic
Imagine our goal is creation of a community environment (perhaps such as UX.stackexchange).
Through our word choices, we can choose individual or pluralistic expressions - and the words ...
1
vote
3answers
78 views
Dashboard comparing current stats with a week ago — which week?
I am building a visualization which is intending to show current stats for a particular metric (lets say dollars in sales) for particular groupings (lets say sales territories). We want to be able to ...
3
votes
1answer
123 views
Equal Opportunities Button
I'm currently designing a form at the end of an application process to ask potential candidates to complete an Equal Opportunities form. (We are required by law to provide this)
However I'm trying to ...
248
votes
14answers
29k views
Should error messages apologize?
We are having a discussion on our team about an error message that says "Sorry, you do not have permission to access this feature. Please contact your administrator for assistance."
Is it ...
4
votes
4answers
198 views
What makes sense to designers HiDPI, @2x, or Retina?
I'm designing a web application for web designers and I'm having some trouble with semantics. I'm trying to figure out whether the word "HiDPI", "@2x", or "Retina" best describes the secondary image a ...
3
votes
3answers
86 views
“Likes” vs “Vote Up” For Sharing Content
If content-curation comes from the users for a consumer-facing site and there's no "down-vote" option, are "likes" better or "votes" better?
Here's my thoughts:
"Like" provides a more friendly and ...
2
votes
4answers
79 views
Wording suggestions for “unhidden”, esp given translations
I am looking for wording suggestions.
There is a panel on my webpage that can be removed by the user.
If a user removes it, a message appears at the top of the screen that says:
The "How it Works" ...
15
votes
5answers
676 views
How can I deal with diverse gender identities in user profiles?
I'm trying to work out the wording for (preferably) a gender dropdown in a user profile of a site I'm working on. I want to be inclusive of people who don't gender orient to either male or female ( ...
64
votes
10answers
4k views
'My Account' or 'Your Account'?
I want to put a link to an account page in a toolbar. What person should I use to refer to the user's settings? Should I call it 'My Account' or 'Your Account'? I've seen both is use, and I'm not sure ...
3
votes
3answers
157 views
The term “User Experience” in sales
This might be redundant, but I'm curious about the end user's experience when they read the phrase "User Experience".
I've seen a number of websites say that they design the best user experience, but ...
2
votes
2answers
145 views
Should the term Mac and PC be differentiated
This is a simple question which I believe affects UX.
In current times, is it correct to use PC as the collective term for Mac, PC, Laptops, etc? Will users be bothered by it? Or is it just an Apple ...
0
votes
3answers
211 views
Is it more clear to use “Login | Sign up” rather than “Sign in | Sign up” [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
“Sign Up” vs “Create an Account”
"Login | Sign up" seems to have more contrast than "Sign in | Sign up" especially for people who don't good at ...
1
vote
3answers
391 views
Confirmation message when closing a lightbox / modal box
A feature of a website I'm designing requires the user to perform various steps inside a "lightbox" / modal box. This is a requirement, I cannot embed the process inside the main layout.
I don't want ...
3
votes
1answer
268 views
ux review word for select all
Is is ok to use Select/Deselect All here or better to shorten it to only select all.
Would the users know that if they uncheck the "select all" checkbox. Everything will be disselected
11
votes
7answers
1k views
“Sign Up” vs “Create an Account”
Which pick is better for a service? Especially if I would like the website to resemble American style.
Gmail and Dropbox say: "Sign In or create an account"
Yahoo says: "Sign In. New here? Sign ...
3
votes
1answer
181 views
Is it necessary to specifically instruct users to use the Back button to navigate away from a webpage?
I find it annoying when users are explicitly instructed to use the Back button to navigate away from a webpage. An example from the login page for the Contensive CMS follows (emphasis added):
The ...
4
votes
3answers
295 views
Best way to organize interface
I have an application where users can select some items from a catalogue and add into their reports.
Some users prefer to add positions one by one, first opening the catalogue, adding a new ...
9
votes
3answers
188 views
Is active voice or passive voice preferable for a computer UI?
In an Ubuntu installer bug I mention that this text:
You need to restart the computer.
...should be changed to:
The computer needs to be restarted.
The developer objected based on the ...
2
votes
4answers
198 views
Best words to indicate appreciate/depreciate instead of like/dislike
we have designed a system that creates a personalized stream of (text based) content for users. In order for the system to adapt, the users have to constantly give some feedback based on whether a ...
3
votes
3answers
614 views
Best way to show and sort by dates when the item may be repeating/recurring?
Currently this website has a list of FooBars, which may be sorted by date:
I am adding functionality to allow a FooBar to be repeated, or a recurring FooBar
e.g.
Weekly on Mondays and Tuesdays
...
3
votes
3answers
140 views
What to call a 'multi-valued string attribute' for the end user?
I am asking users to handle entities (here a subject) with multiple attributes. The first attribute shown here is a numeric value. The second is multi-valued text.
desired experience: 1.5
desired ...
5
votes
4answers
388 views
Alternative term to “Blacklist” and “Whitelist”
In short, my company is developing a management tool for managing SIM cards. One of the features of the tool is to block the SIM card if it's put into a none allowed device by device IMEI validation.
...
5
votes
8answers
445 views
The right wording for “close”
The company I work for (based in the UK) is building a piece of software for iOS, and they use "Dismiss" instead of "Close", "Exit", "Cancel", etc. for the button to close the page at hand.
I find ...
6
votes
6answers
368 views
“Doesn't look like a valid…” versus “..is invalid”
I'm not designing anything at the moment but this thought popped into my head earlier. What do you think would be the pros/cons of wording validation errors as:
"This doesn't look like a valid phone ...
9
votes
2answers
161 views
How do you test phrasing of labels, links, and descriptive text?
At my workplace, an academic library, we often have extended conflicts over exactly how to phrase labels, links, and descriptive text.
For example, one link on our home page goes to a list of topics, ...
5
votes
5answers
212 views
Is “<Object name>: <quantity>” notation acceptable in most popular localization?
This question was originally asked in the linguistics SE (which is not a good place to ask this kinds of thing).
Full question follows
I follow the software localization guideline, that states ...
5
votes
3answers
226 views
Should field labels be nouns or verbs?
On a web form should field labels be nouns or verbs? This issue arose from two fields on an account request form that currently read:
Temporary Password
Re-Enter Temporary Password
There is debate ...
6
votes
5answers
294 views
Alternative wording to 'upgrade from free trial to a paying plan'?
Looking for an alternative to 'upgrade'. The problem is that in our web-app ui and communication, we are currently using two different versions of upgrade:
the common upgrade/downgrade of the ...
5
votes
5answers
261 views
Login wording: be terse?
I'm working on this login page:
It has three "phrases" with more than 1 word, namely:
Log in to your account
Forgot your password?
Create a new
account.
I have minimalist tendencies and would ...
7
votes
7answers
682 views
“All” vs. “Any” for a choice which indicates lack of filtering
I have a table of items that can be filtered by many aspects, one of which, for example, is status. The filter is represented by a dropdown, where the default option is to not filter by any status.
...
1
vote
2answers
193 views
Best wording for “edit X” button?
What is the best wording for an "edit section" button and why? The pages I am linking to will be for adding and editing existing items. For example it could contain one of:
Manage Pages
Add/Edit ...
10
votes
4answers
360 views
How should I name the paid app VS unpaid app on mobile devices?
I will be releasing a paid and unpaid version of my app on iPhone and Android. How should I name these two versions? Some popular choices I've seen are:
Namezilla Free + Namezilla
Namezilla Lite + ...
