Select/Deselect
Or maybe that’s Unselect, although that’s obviously not a real word, but when does that stop us? As I try and complete a design specification for a product finder, only interrupted by my writing about trying to complete a design specification for a product finder, I notice that its the subtle nuances that really take the time to figure out. I know what a table looks like. I also know what a drop-down list of comparable subcategory products looks like. I even know what a Products By Category: Subcategory Listing: Filtered: Single Attribute product list item looks like. But I don’t know whether the 508 label for a button that allows you to uncheck a range of checkboxes should say ‘Unselect All’ or ‘Deselect All’.
Actually, I do know that its ‘Deselect All’, but I only know that because somebody told me. I’m sure someone here who can quote the style and editorial guides complete with page references and footnotes off the top of their head would have been able to point out to me the grammatical and semantic reasoning behind that decision, notwithstanding the fact that unselect isn’t actually a word, even though I thought it might be, because my vocabulary necessarily contains a mixture of English, US English, and web terms, which means I’m never quite sure these days when I write an email or comp a blurb that I’m making any sense at all. Much like as I’m writing this.
The thing is, however long I agonize/agonise over the relative placement of a product image and whether the attribute listings should be bulleted or repeat the attribute names, or what labels we give to information architecture in context with other category pages, the thing that will take 20 minutes to resolve, in a meeting where you’ve got 15 minutes to present the design specification, of which that component appears on 2 pages which should take 2 minutes to cover, will be the annoying label for the widget. So I’m sorting that out right now. I’ve probably missed an entire interaction flow as a result, but that label is now correct, right?
Listening Post: Teenage Fanclub: Commercial Alternative