Ifbyphone Blog

One of the most important things I do when I write an application is check for consistent prompts. What do we say to the customer? Do we say the same thing everywhere, or do we suddenly change our minds half-way through the application?Here’s an example from what I’m working on today. The client supplied the following prompt:

Press # or say “main menu” at any time during this message to go to the options menu.

How do I check this prompt to make certain that it’s (a) consistent and therefore (b) not confusing?I start out by underlining each individual “name” and each individual “action” in the prompt. A “name” is the name of something: for example, what you and I would call an account number some applications call a “customer number.” An “action” is something that we ask the customer to do, or that the customer wants to do; for example, we might ask the customer to “say” the account number, “press” a button, or the customer may wish to “transfer” funds.Here’s a table of all the names and actions I found in the prompt, in order:

Then I start checking for consistency. I looked through this application and made a decision: during the application, we will always use “press” consistently; we won’t use “press” in some places and “enter” in others. We will also use “say” consistently.But the rest of this prompt poses further problems. First of all, the action “#” (pressing that particular key) isn’t consistent with other places; it’s the only # in the entire application. The “options menu” wasn’t defined anywhere — in fact, although I am developing the software, even I can’t figure out which menu is the “options” menu. And furthermore why require someone to say “main menu” if they want to go to the “options” menu — that’s not consistent even in the same prompt! Actions should always be consistent with names whenever possible.”Go to” is an action that the user might want to do, but the wording has to be consistent with other places in the application. Finally, the name “this message” might not be consistent with the idea that we’re in a “menu.” Is this a “message” or a “menu?”In the end, I was able to straighten this out. The call flow is really just returning the user to the previous menu, and now I use the words “previous menu” everywhere in the application and also always use the * key to or the words “previous menu” to get there. I also use “return to” when I’m returning rather than “go to.” The prompt now reads something like this:

To return to the previous menu, say “previous menu” or press *.

I use the exact same wording for this prompt everywhere in the document.With consistent prompts, callers will be more comfortable with the application because they won’t have to re-learn how the application behaves each time they encounter a prompt, and they can focus on the content of the questions rather than trying to figure out what the questions mean in the first place.