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I want to describe a use case for an app where the user can easily generate grocery lists from his recipes. The text should be something like: Create grocery lists from your recipe collection
*) easily via click.
*) easily.
*) via simple click.
...

But this sounds like a one-to-one word translation. In German, I would write something like "Erstellen Sie per Knopfdruck Einkaufslisten aus Ihrer Rezeptsammlung". But "per Knopfdruck" (via clicking a button) does not necessarily mean that one click is enough to create a grocery list of a recipe collection. From a technical point of view, also two or three clicks could be needed for this use case.

Is there an English expression or phrase to describe a technical use case in an app or program, that describes that 'this use case is very easy and can be executed in very few steps'?

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    "At the click of a button" is a fairly common expression, and few people take it too literally.
    – Hot Licks
    Nov 3, 2018 at 12:22
  • @HotLicks Ok, thanks. Didn't know that. While doing some research at first, I thought this would be a one-to-one translation, but obviously it isn't.
    – Bevor
    Nov 3, 2018 at 13:09
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    Amazon famously patented one click purchasing. It caused a bit of a stir in the early 2000s that they had the gall to patent such an obvious thing. But since then “one click <whatever>” has become a standard term in Startupese.
    – Dan Bron
    Nov 3, 2018 at 13:19

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A literal translation would be “at the touch of a button”, although, as you correctly supposed, that would only strictly apply if it was really one touch of one button. For your use case, I would suggest:

For an app with a mouse-based UI:

… in/with just a few clicks.

For an app with a touch-based UI:

… in/with just a few taps.

The variants with “in” are used slightly less frequently, and “just” is optional.

To emphasise the speed and ease you might say:

… in a breeze with just a few clicks/taps.

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  • Ok, but "with a few clicks" suggests that it the use case is somewhat complicated since it needs 'several clicks' and not 'just one'. I think about using HotLicks' proposal, since he said that this is a fairly common expression.
    – Bevor
    Nov 3, 2018 at 13:12
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    Yes, here it's naturally the age-old marketing question of being totally honest vs attracting customers. For what it's worth, to my ear, “at the touch of a button” sounds marginally better than “at the click of a button” — perhaps it's the matching vowels, or the fact that “touching” requires less effort than “clicking”!
    – Peter
    Nov 3, 2018 at 13:42
  • @Peter I have a feeling the general saying came about before mice/mouses, referring to machines in general. Back in the day people used to say we live in a push-button world, this was most common I think in the 50s/60s. Push-button warfare also according to NGrams was most popular at around the same period. books.google.com/ngrams/…
    – Zebrafish
    Nov 3, 2018 at 14:25

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