88
votes
How can I say "there is a possibility, up to 30 mins delay in the time you booked for calling you" shorter?
It sounds to me like what you really want is for the user to select a one hour time slot instead of a fixed time.
This makes it much clearer that you cannot commit to a specific time and the user must ...
- 7,061
80
votes
Should a pie chart show the legend for a wedge with 0%?
Show the numbers.
If the user selected three fruits to be shown, Apples, Oranges, and Melons, and only sees Apples and Melons in the pie and in the legend, they will wonder where the Oranges went. If ...
- 1,295
77
votes
Accepted
Can the "$" symbol be safely considered as universal when making a graphic depicting money?
It may very well be universally understood but I would be concerned (or at least keep in mind) the user's reaction to this symbol. Would a Russian (a patriotic Russian) be happy to see money be ...
- 6,641
69
votes
Is it okay to name submit button as "Select"
...but name buttons after what they actually do.
This might seem pedantic, but looking at the screenshot the "Select" button doesn't select the video, it confirms a previous selection, presumably by ...
- 2,321
66
votes
Can the "$" symbol be safely considered as universal when making a graphic depicting money?
Context matters a lot here.
Like others mentioned, localization and your primary userbase should inform you whether to use $, €, £ or ¥ as 'standard' symbol. It might also be possible to do a ...
- 8,301
54
votes
Users entering the wrong decimal separators for US$ amounts
Another option would be for the text field to ignore all non-numeric characters, and display appropriate formatting automatically.
For example:
User enters '3' -> Text field displays '0.03'
User ...
- 906
51
votes
Dealing with long-title buttons
Remember the user's context. Sometimes when we are creating an interface, we tend to forget that our user is navigating through a specific set of information to reach an action button. At that point, "...
- 4,583
50
votes
Should a pie chart show the legend for a wedge with 0%?
How about his. show the percentage in the legend:
Apples (20%)
Melons (80%)
Oranges (0%)
- 601
41
votes
Can the "$" symbol be safely considered as universal when making a graphic depicting money?
Surely the best symbol for currency that will be universally understood would be a note and coin as every currency uses both paper notes and coins most currencies use banknotes and coins.
Given this ...
- 1,511
36
votes
Placeholders with the same text as the label - good practice?
Typically I find using the placeholder text as an example of the intended content is best. So, the label describes the field, and the placeholder exemplifies the type of content.
Here's a good ...
- 481
35
votes
Accepted
Users entering the wrong decimal separators for US$ amounts
Let's talk for a minute about user expectations and magic.
A user comes to your tool with certain expectations, and not every user's expectations are the same. You're seeing this first-hand. Culture,...
- 2,058
30
votes
Dealing with long-title buttons
Can you just annotate the button with a label? The label explains the action, and the buttons indicate a clear and specific action that will be taken.
In some cases, we do something like this:
...
- 801
30
votes
Graph with overlapping labels
You have several visualization problems to solve in one graph. How are the users interacting with this?
Your question is focused mostly on labels, however, you also mentioned showing when an element ...
- 24.5k
28
votes
Users entering the wrong decimal separators for US$ amounts
Show the user what's expected visually and show how the machine interprets the user's input.
My contribution to the brainstorm would be:
Use a reference to the cheque-form of the old days :)
Let ...
- 681
28
votes
Should a pie chart show the legend for a wedge with 0%?
Yes, show it. The data IS important.
Others gave given good reasons (the inclusion of Oranges clarifies they HAD been taken into account) and suggestions (show percentages or numbers, show a thin ...
- 401
27
votes
Better labels than "Date 1" and "Date 2"
So the user is interested in the price history of a product? And this part of your website lets them see how much the price of that product has changed between the first date and the second date?
...
- 431
26
votes
Can the "$" symbol be safely considered as universal when making a graphic depicting money?
Historically, this question has been debated for quite a long time.
There is a "Generic Currency Symbol," which looks like "¤" which has been used since at least 1985, where it was included in ISO ...
- 651
25
votes
Users entering the wrong decimal separators for US$ amounts
You can do whatever you wish basically, as long as you provide a way to verify the input. I would personally dynamically display --next to the input field-- the amount at least partially written out, ...
- 1,353
25
votes
Accepted
Align text left or right Next to textBox?
It depends.
LukeW has covered this in his book Web Form Design. It's not a new book, but covers most of the common web form problems.
Each has an advantage/disadvantage:
Right aligned:
Right-aligned ...
- 24.5k
21
votes
Accepted
Counter in a corner of a button
Are you restricted to using an angled corner?
If not, a box would be much more simple & sleek.
Otherwise if you are stuck using the angled corner, aligning to the top right rather then center is ...
- 566
21
votes
Should a pie chart show the legend for a wedge with 0%?
Don't use a pie chart
Your problem stems from the fact you're using a pie chart. Pie charts are simply not a very good way of representing data (see here, here, here or here for some discussions of ...
- 1,193
20
votes
Can the "$" symbol be safely considered as universal when making a graphic depicting money?
The answer is simply
of course, absolutely not
and it's surprising there is so much humming-and-hawing about it here.
It's an extremely US-centric idea, it's "just silly" if you will. Indeed ...
- 1,153
19
votes
Accepted
Should I use "Search" or "Find” on my buttons?
With regard to English in general, "Search for Flights" and "Find Flights" would work equally well. "Find Flights" is subtly optimistic that there are flights that match the user's criteria. That may ...
- 37.7k
19
votes
Accepted
Graph with overlapping labels
If it is absolutely necessary to see all the amounts in detail all the time you could go with a variation of your second solution but still keep the figures in one column. like this
Alternatively you ...
- 3,405
18
votes
Accepted
Better labels than "Date 1" and "Date 2"
I think you're missing an element of the form. Trying to explain each individual field rather than the purpose of those two fields as a whole.
Think of this from an accessibility perspective. If ...
JonW♦
- 37.2k
16
votes
How to indicate that one of a group of fields is required
You don't need the double asterisk if you can group related fields together and label them (example: "Contact Information") and then place the asterisk by the label "Contact Information." (you can add ...
- 6,641
15
votes
Can the "$" symbol be safely considered as universal when making a graphic depicting money?
Lots of people have given good reasons. I don't think you'll get many Russians growing too irate at the $ sign but it is an interesting thought.
Another possible problem with the $ sign is it could ...
- 3,060
15
votes
Accepted
Should labels in forms follow the same grammar rules as titles
This is from Microsoft
Title Caps:
Capitalize the first letter of the first and last words. Capitalize the first letter of all words in between, with the exception of articles (a, an, and the); ...
- 16.2k
14
votes
Should a pie chart show the legend for a wedge with 0%?
Definitely keep it in the legend.
If you only have the two items in the legend it looks like you created a chart to show the comparison of Apples and Melons. For all the user knows there could be ...
- 15.3k
14
votes
Accepted
Form fields as sentence
Recent trends call that technique a Natural Language Form. That field and label appear appropriate to me in given situation; as it doesn't leave any scope of confusion.
I just rearranged the fields ...
- 16.2k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible