Re: User Interface Context

To Bruce's point, I would remove "set of" from the beginning of the
definition.

   user interface elements and the presented information within a product
   that are available to a user at any point in time, where the set is
   limited to only those that can be reached using navigation commands
   within the product, and without using any activation commands.

What does "and the presented information" mean? Is the case of an authoring
tool, I assume it is the "thing" being edited. I don't see a problem there
as long as the "thing" doesn't have any interactivity of its own while it
is being edited.

But in the case of a user agent, I assume the presented information is the
"thing" being rendered (web page, web application, Flash application, PDF
document) which might very well have it's own interactivity. In this case,
it feels like scoping in "the presented information" is going too far. When
I'm tabbing and arrowing around in a web application rendered in the
browser, am I in the browser UI context or the web application UI context?
It's very hard to draw the line there - the tabbing might be part of of the
browser UI context while the arrowing might be part of the web application
UI context.

I would like to avoid the use of "product" as it implies something
commercial. But I can't think of another term to suggest at the moment.
"Application" is also limiting as it leaves out the platform UI.

I think we will have to define "navigation command" and "activation
command", find different terms, or explain them better in the notes. Most
developers, absent further explanation, would consider selecting a menu
item to be a navigation command. You are navigating to a different part of
the UI. Activation, in the software context, generally means taking some
action that changes something - saves a document, saves changes to
settings, submits a transaction, etc. Using this definition, selecting a
menu item might be navigation (opens another menu or non-modal dialog box)
or it might be activation (opens a modal dialog box).

Andi