Action button labels

[milkshake]

essentially what im saying in regards to giving the user instructions is that if you provide the correct verbs with the correct nouns you should have little issue providing easy to follow instructions which cause little confusion.

 

[Kiga]

Everyone knows the difference between a "key" and a "button" i.e. a doorbell is a button. A piano's use keys and so do keyboards so if you were to use those items then you generally would know the terms "key" and "type" and if someone told you to press the A "button" you would likely not associate that with a "key" and vice versa.

I'm not being funny but this argument about the nouns "keys" and "buttons" or the verbs "type" and "press" being hard to grasp or differentiate is just silly.

A key is a button, we should follow the logic and not what people do.

A label is made to differentiate buttons, that's why no button should have the same label. And of course no matter what label you put, people will adapt (that's why greek's letters isn't a problem and that's why axby is a nonsense) but when you conceive you have to follow logic, order.

Because even if a house can stand with a wobby base, if you want it to look good, avoid futur issues and stand for a long time, you should put stones perfectly aligned.

 

[milkshake]

A key is not a button is a key hence its name.

 

[God Ginrai]

Labels are not made to differentiate buttons but to be able to communicate which button is to be used. Greek letters are not apt for this because they can not be easily communicated by both developers and users.

EDIT: milkshake, that argument actually won't work. A key is a type of button. Regardless, no one calls a "keyboard" a "buttonboard". Just like no one calls a "key" a "button".

-God Ginrai

 

[milkshake]

My mistake sorry you are right, still you wouldn't get the two mixed up when you have a keyboard.

Also reinforce the use of key with type and you can't go wrong.

 

[Neelix]

EDIT:  As an experiment, I showed Mum the pandora, pointed out the two A's and asked which she would press if I told her to press the A button.  Mum may not be a tech head but she knows her way around a computer. 

She pointed to the one in the keyboard section.

Except you didn't do a complete experiment. You forgot some steps.

Step 2: "Alright Mum, now let's say that didn't have the desired reaction. Which button would you press now?"

Step 3: Assuming she then pressed the A button, "Alright, now let's say that had the desired reaction. Now when I ask you to press the A button again, which one are you going to press?"

All you tested is the fact that someone could get it wrong with one try. You didn't test their ability to learn from their mistakes.

The ability to learn is really irrelevant here, You could use that argument to justify anything. The point is that I shouldn't have to guess which button is intended when following an instruction. Having more than one button on the device with the same name introduces an unnecessary ambiguity.

Also, I highly doubt you said "There's 2 As here". You probably confused her with wording like: "There's 2 A buttons".

I was careful to avoid that actually.

That being said I have always always considered the terms key and button to be interchangeable when used in reference to (computer) keyboard keys. They may be called keys, but they are still buttons. The keys on the Pandora especially aren't what I would traditionally consider a key either, they have just inherited that name.

But then you have to go through the same process again with every new program, and then you have to remember which A each program is likely to be referring to, or go though the process again. It shouldn't be a matter of trial and error! If told press A I shouldn't have to guess which A button because there should be only one of each button on the device.

So you're telling me that every single time you open a program you make this same mistake? Because the only time that you would repeat the process is when you press the wrong button or key. It is highly improbable to do it wrong for every single application.

No, but say for example I decide to fire up a program I don't use commonly then I may not remember what keys it uses. If I'm relying on help texts to tell me the mapping I don't want there to be any guesswork involved in comprehending them. When you follow an instruction and you don't get the results you expect, you don't always know why, Certainly prior to this conversation "there are 2 buttons called that" wouldn't have been the first thing to come to mind.

- Neelix

 

[Kiga]

A key is not a button is a key hence its name.

lol

EDIT:

My mistake sorry you are right, still you wouldn't get the two mixed up when you have a keyboard. Also reinforce the use of key with type and you can't go wrong.

I thought you're joking. Why should we do that while we could chose another labels?

Labels are not made to differentiate buttons but to be able to communicate which button is to be used. Greek letters are not apt for this because they can not be easily communicated by both developers and users.

-God Ginrai

Button are made to send information to the computer. There are many buttons because there are many information, labels are made to know which button send what information, so to differiantiate buttons.

Nobody need to tell you what button you shoud press because you should know what information you have to send by reading manual. Because of emulation, someone have to write somewhere, what information correspond to what labels that's all.

 

[milkshake]

I ready apologised for my mistake but at least I'm not hiding it.

Also I'm not pretending to be confused by the term key vs button.

Also the whole point of using the correct verbs and nouns is to leave little room for confusion why would u want to write rubbish instructions when you can make them clear and concise?

 

[Neelix]

Except that that distinction is one I would never have made before spending several months in this forum. To me, coming in I would have referred to all the buttons as keys, and if you had tried telling me which to press based on the fact that you called it a button or key, I would have had only a 50% chance of getting it right.

It was only after I had several months to adjust to the convention used here that I started to mentally make that distinction.

- Neelix

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

What about something like this:

This is nice!

 

[milkshake]

I don't think it's a convention that is used just in the Pandora forums / community.

I think it's quite common place amongst people who use keyboards or consoles.

 

[Kiga]

@milkshake I don't know what you mean by "rubbish information" and " clear and concise".

Honestly, I don't care about labeling, that's why I said

I am convinced that no choice can be better than Π Ω Δ X / Π Ω Δ χ   if we want to innovate.

(by innovate I wanted to say, if we want to change from latin letters)

But now I say Greek letters are clearly the best choice because what bothers me is that it make no sense to chose latin letters as they are already used. The only reason to choose latin letters is following usual labeling. And I put logic and consistency over habits.

 

[milkshake]

I'm fed up of this debate it's going round in circles leading back to the same counter points over and over again.

Can we not just write a list of pros and cons of each and then let ed decide please.

 

[SNESFAN]

 

No, but say for example I decide to fire up a program I don't use commonly then I may not remember what keys it uses. If I'm relying on help texts to tell me the mapping I don't want there to be any guesswork involved in comprehending them. When you follow an instruction and you don't get the results you expect, you don't always know why, Certainly prior to this conversation "there are 2 buttons called that" wouldn't have been the first thing to come to mind.

- Neelix

I believe a reasonable person would take it in context. If you are describing the mappings of abcxyz (buttons) then contextually I don't think a reasonable person would say "do you think they mean the keyboard?" I mean, is this a common problem now on pandora? I don't see it brought up.

But a reasonable person would say "what the hell is a chi?" if the symbol isn't used as a reference.

An solution in that situation may be to use hotkeys even if the primary (keys) aren't used. ALT+A instead of just A (key) etc. Or just avoid using abcxyz (keys) for any function, hotkey or not. People are used to hotkeys on a keyboard, gamers (PC or console) equate hotkeys to keyboards.


 

I'm fed up of this debate it's going round in circles leading back to the same counter points over and over again.

Can we not just write a list of pros and cons of each and then let ed decide please.

I agree, it's silly and superficial, doesn't impact usability, and whatever choice is decided people will learn to use it.

 

[Kiga]

 whatever choice is decided people will learn to use it.

That's exactly why your argument above isn't valid,  and that's why I prefer consistency over habits.

 

[Neelix]

I don't think it's a convention that is used just in the Pandora forums / community.

I think it's quite common place amongst people who use keyboards or consoles.

*shrugs* maybe it's comes more naturally if you have a history of using both? I never had access to any consoles growing up, so perhaps that's why.

In any case, the fact that I had to learn that distinction here proves that it's not a convention we can rely on for this purpose. Nor is there a need to, as there is a simple solution - remove the ambiguity.

- Neelix

 

[God Ginrai]

The ability to learn is really irrelevant here, You could use that argument to justify anything. The point is that I shouldn't have to guess which button is intended when following an instruction. Having more than one button on the device with the same name introduces an unnecessary ambiguity.

 It's not really guessing. If it's a native game, it's quite likely to use one of the game buttons; If it's a desktop app, it likely is using the keyboard; If it is an emulated console, it is likely to use one of the game buttons; If it is an emulated computer, it is likely to use the keyboard. I have never pressed the wrong key or button for A, B, X, Y, L, or R in the whole time I've had a Pandora, and I was one of the first 400 people to receive one. I don't believe that that has to do with me being incredibly lucky or having any special "skills". The majority of people should be able to do this. Those who can't, can learn the buttons easily enough.

That being said I have always always considered the terms key and button to be interchangeable when used in reference to (computer) keyboard keys. They may be called keys, but they are still buttons. The keys on the Pandora especially aren't what I would traditionally consider a key either, they have just inherited that name.

 A keyboard is a board of keys. While keys may be buttons, it does not make any sense whatsoever to call the keys on a keyboard "buttons" instead of keys. As I said before, it's called a "keyboard", not a "buttonboard".

No, but say for example I decide to fire up a program I don't use commonly then I may not remember what keys it uses. If I'm relying on help texts to tell me the mapping I don't want there to be any guesswork involved in comprehending them. When you follow an instruction and you don't get the results you expect, you don't always know why, Certainly prior to this conversation "there are 2 buttons called that" wouldn't have been the first thing to come to mind.

 This contradicts your argument that the user would not know which button to press. If they don't know which is the correct button to press, then they are obviously aware that two buttons with the same label exist, so "there are 2 buttons called that" should be the first thing to come to mind. Also, considering that you are the one who suggested this feeble problem in the first place, I highly doubt you wouldn't think right away about how there were 2 buttons called the same thing.

Button are made to send information to the computer. There are many buttons because there are many information, labels are made to know which button send what information, so to differiantiate buttons.

Keys may tell you what information they send, but Game buttons do not. A Start button on a controller does not send the string "Start" to its host device.

Nobody need to tell you what button you shoud press because you should know what information you have to send by reading manual. Because of emulation, someone have to write somewhere, what information correspond to what labels that's all.

That's not true. If I'm talking to my friend, I will tell him tips and tricks about how to do things, often mentioning button combinations. I don't hand him a manual for the game. Users need to be able to easily communicate which buttons they are speaking about.

-God Ginrai

 

[milkshake]

Lol that doesn't mean his argument is invalid why do you say that?

 

[milkshake]

Also although you may use the term button as interchangeable for key I doubt you would use the term key as interchangeable for the word button would you?

 

[Neelix]

Technically, given my concept of a key, and looking at the pandora without a predefined concept of a 'keyboard' I would normally have considered the gaming buttons as keys and the keyboard keys as buttons, simply due to way the way the Pandora is constructed.

- Neelix

EDIT: Given that I did have a predefined concept of a keyboard that somewhat blurred the distinction, hence considering the whole lot as keys when I started.