I noticed something interesting while cleaning up my Google Docs this past weekend — and it’s related to UI copy.
I was trying to get rid of a doc and saw a Remove option, yet it was accompanied with a trash can icon. The first thing that came to my mind was that trash cans were for deleting…but I am also new to this area, so what did I know?
So I selected Remove, but then I was hit with a toast notification saying the doc was moved to the trash.
This started to feel more and more like a delete action than a remove action. I decided to investigate Google Contacts’ copy. Surprisingly, I saw they used the option of Delete with the same trash can.
By this point I realized that (at the very least) Google’s tools are a little confusing, but they might also be downright inconsistent.
Before I could confirm the latter claim I needed to do a little more research on what Delete and Remove really mean in the context of software — as I am not a developer.
