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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 ...
musefan's user avatar
  • 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 ...
SQB's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Mayo's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Steve Jones's user avatar
  • 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 ...
PixelSnader's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Ghillie Dhu's user avatar
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, "...
Adnan Khan's user avatar
  • 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%)
SAWilliams's user avatar
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 ...
RemarkLima's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Caleb Sylvest's user avatar
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,...
Matt's user avatar
  • 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: ...
kettch's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Mike M's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Ideogram's user avatar
  • 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 ...
kaay's user avatar
  • 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? ...
TScott's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Cort Ammon's user avatar
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, ...
yo''s user avatar
  • 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 ...
Mike M's user avatar
  • 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 ...
alexbouchard's user avatar
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 ...
Jack Aidley's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Fattie's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Michael Zuschlag's user avatar
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 ...
BrunoH's user avatar
  • 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's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Mayo's user avatar
  • 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 ...
the other one's user avatar
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); ...
Dipak's user avatar
  • 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 ...
DasBeasto's user avatar
  • 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 ...
Dipak's user avatar
  • 16.2k

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