Technical Writing – Windows User Interface Components in Software Documentation (1) – Desktop

Software documentation is an important subspecialty within the broader discipline of Technical Writing and Communication. User interface documentation, along with procedure writing, is one of the important tasks in software documentation. This is a task that needs to be done very well, consistently and unambiguously, as procedure writing is based on a solid foundation of user interface information.

A clear definition of each UI component is the building block that a technical writer should implement before attempting any procedural writing. Procedure manuals that contain user interface inconsistencies never work.

Here are some of the basic, industry-standard definitions you should follow in your documentation:

NOTE: Windows, Mac, and Linux machines have different user interfaces, depending on the particular operating system (OS) (or “distribution” in the case of Linux) installed on your machine. In this series of articles, we will only cover the Windows interface, which is numerically the most widely used interface in the world.

DESK it’s the first screen you see when you log in to your computer. If you have the XP operating system installed, for example, that would be the screen showing that beautiful green field with fluffy clouds above. That would be your default desktop image, although you can change it however you like.

This desk would show ICONSthe graphical representations of programs (or shortcuts to those programs), files, and folders that are stored on your hard drive.

Each icon would have a brief LABEL below to identify it.

At the bottom of the desktop, it would have a horizontal bar, whose correct name is the TASKBAR.

The TASKBAR has several components/regions. The most important is the prominent START BUTTON in the far left corner which, when clicked, brings up the START MENU. The Start menu is the escape route to all the other files and programs on your computer.

To the right of the Star button, you would have the QUICK LAUNCH BAR which includes the icons of the most frequently used programs (called an “application” on a Mac machine).

To the right of the quick launch bar, you would have BUTTON APPLICATION icons, each of which represents a program open and running on your machine.

In the far right corner of the taskbar is the AREA NOTIFICATION which includes the icons of various processes. For example, if you have an antivirus program running to protect your computer, its icon will appear in this Notification Area. If you are connected or not connected to a network, another icon will notify you of the fact.

We’ll continue our survey of Windows user interface components in our next article in this series.