Some time ago I've been showing my computer program to my teacher. Suddenly he began to laugh pointing at 'Please enter your name: ' statement. I tried to figure out what was wrong. He said it's better to use input instead of enter and the sentence sounds funny otherwise.
Here they're defining the word input using the word enter.
To enter data into the computer.
What's better to use in such sentences as 'Please (input/enter) your name: ' - input or enter?
Easy-to-use computer programs tend to have very short user instructions. Short prompts are often better than polite prompts.
Joel Spolsky (our host) has written an article about this. Scroll down to the part that has the pictures, titled "In fact, users don't read anything."
In the original poster's example, I would label the text entry box as
Name:
I write software, and would always use "Please enter your name:" There's nothing funny sounding about it.
There is a key Enter on your keyboard.
In the past, when graphical interface was not so popular, people hit the Enter key after typing a command or an answer to the computer. So Enter your username actually asked you to hit the Enter key after your key-ins.
Nowadays, however, you use a mouse or hit the Tab key to jump to the next textbox. So I believe, using Input would avoid misleading the users to hit the Enter key. For example, on a web page, hitting the Enter key actually submits the input form on the page.
