10 MESSAGES AND TEXT

The Action key label is context sensitive, but when navigating between an application’s views uniform wording is needed. The following wording should be used.

• Use sentence case. This means begin the first word in menu commands, dialog titles, dialog lines, buttons, data labels etc. with an uppercase letter. Begin all following words with a lower case letter. For example, use "Edit categories" not "Edit Categories".

• Use "Information" rather than "Error".

• Use "Delete contact" instead of just "Delete" and "New contact" rather than "New".

• Use "contacts", "lines" and "entries" rather than "records" and "fields".

• If you need to use computer-related terminology because there are no obvious everyday metaphors, use standard computer vocabulary.

• Use full, grammatically correct and complete sentences where possible. For example, "Cursor is not on an entry" rather than "Cursor not on entry".

• Be consistent. Use the same terms for the same things. Use UIQ’s standard terms where possible. Be consistent with terminology you invent yourself.

• Use different wording for singular and plural: "1 contact selected" and "3 contacts selected" rather than "1 contact(s) selected".

• Do not end error messages with an exclamation mark.

• Do not end Infoprints with a period.

• When truncation is needed, end the word with an ellipsis, a single character code point 0x2026 in Unicode, not 3 period characters.

A notification is a message from an application or server that interrupts whatever application is active with a system-modal dialog, a sound or some other indication like a flashing LED. System-modal dialogs must be acknowledged before the user can perform any other action. The user cannot switch to another application.

Examples of notifications:

• Alarm,

• Low battery messages that can be acknowledged.

In the event of a notification dialog, users can read the notification and then have the option of continuing with whatever they were doing before. In some cases, a notification may offer the user a button to switch to an application that the user can use to process the event in more detail.

Notifications are given priorities in accordance with their urgency.

The user should be notified of serious errors by a dialog with a Continue button and an Information title. It is not appropriate to use Infoprints for serious error conditions.

Be careful not to make your messages unnecessarily scary. "Contact not found" is better than "Contact does not exist".

• Do not frighten users with error messages about relatively unimportant things. But do make sure users know that serious conditions are serious.

• If you can, include suggestions for remedial action.