Projects/Usability/HIG/StaticText

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Purpose

Users tend to read only interactive control labels, especially those that appear relevant to completing the task at hand. By contrast, users read static text when they think they need to.

Guidelines

  • Use the inverted pyramid for text. Start with the the conclusion and the fundamental "takeaway" that readers must have. Then fill in progressively more detail that readers may be interested in - perhaps just to scan.
  • Remove redundant text. Leave full text in main instructions and interactive controls, and remove any redundancy from the other places.
  • Avoid large blocks of UI text by chunking text into shorter sentences and paragraphs or providing help links to useful, but not essential, information.
  • Use bold font sparingly to draw attention to text users must read. A different font, e.g. bold or italic, can be used to attract attention when changes to UI design are not applicable or not efficient enough.

Implementation