WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Verbiage for button and link interactions

for

From: Anne Godlewski
Date: Dec 16, 2016 8:58AM

Hi Chris,

If your colleagues are anything like the technical documentation team I worked on, they probably want a single term that can apply to all cases. Our first go-to resource was the Microsoft Manual of Style, as this was the most authoritative style guide published for tech documentation. I don't have the book in my personal library (nor do I remember what the style guide had to say about pressable objects), but I see online that "click" and "tap" both appear in the style guide's "usage dictionary," so if you can get your hands on the book, you might be able to get additional insight. I also see that there's an entire chapter on accessibility, so they might address the topic there too.

Anne

On 2016-12-16, at 9:02 AM, Christopher Myers wrote:

> Hi!
>
> I'm passing along a question for a colleague --
>
> They're working on documentation for an online process, and are trying to figure out how to best phrase the interaction that users do with links and buttons.
>
> Some of their coworkers say that it should be "click," but others say it should be "tap." Their reasoning behind "tap" is for mobile devices and accessibility programs. But other users would be confused by "tap" when they're using a pointing device with buttons.
>
> So, I was just curious if there's a "universal" way of referring to one's interactions with "pressable" objects?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Chris
> > > >