The Button Bar

The button bar presents the main options for a search session, i.e.

• More Books : for query expansion,
• Type Extra Words : to add extra words to the query,
• Titles List : to go to the titles list from the full document display,
• New Search : to enter a new query,
• Print or Mail Results to obtain full details of selected documents,
• End Session : to exit ENQUIRE
• Back : to exit the thesaurus. This button is shown only during thesaurus navigation, when part of the button bar is covered.

The naming of each button command caused considerable discussion, and it was only after the second formative evaluation that the final set was decided upon. For example, More Books started off as Expand Search which users did not understand, and Titles List was originally the jargon word Hitlist.

When a function is inapplicable, (e.g. using More Books before searching the database once), the button is greyed out and disabled. For example, when ENQUIRE starts, the only button not greyed out is End Session, since the only actions that can be performed at that stage are to type in a query and press Return to search, or else to quit ENQUIRE.