From: Phil!Gregory Date: 17:40 on 03 Nov 2003 Subject: Dialog Boxes Dialog boxes are pretty simple creatures. They have some text and some buttons. Sometimes the text asks you to make a decision, and press different buttons based on your decision. Sometimes the labels on the buttons bear *no* resemblance to the actions they perform. I'm not talking about buttons that outright lie; fortunately, they're pretty rare. But in Windows, it's very easy to create dialog boxes with "standard" buttons, like "Yes", "No", "OK", and "Cancel". This leads to error messages like "The program has died unexpectedly. Press OK to quit and Cancel to debug." Oh, yes, "Cancel" is so much like "debug" in meaning. Thanks, Microsoft. (Yes, this was a Windows 2000 error.) Why can't more people take a page from Apple's HCI guidelines, which specify that button labels should be verbs? "Quit" and "Debug" would make so much more sense than "OK" and "Cancel".
From: Earle Martin Date: 17:54 on 03 Nov 2003 Subject: Re: Dialog Boxes On Mon, Nov 03, 2003 at 12:40:06PM -0500, Phil!Gregory wrote: > Why can't more people take a page from Apple's HCI guidelines, which > specify that button labels should be verbs? "Quit" and "Debug" would make > so much more sense than "OK" and "Cancel". This is one of my long-running hates. Why do yes/no choices offer you "OK" and "Cancel" instead of "Yes" or "No"? NO SPEAKA DA ENGRISH?? I hate "OK".
From: David Cantrell Date: 19:41 on 03 Nov 2003 Subject: Re: Dialog Boxes Earle Martin wrote: > I hate "OK". +-------------------------------------------------------+ | The application has crashed and lost all your data. | | And we mean all of it, even the stuff you saved 3 | | weeks ago. And the backups are corrupted too. | | +------+ | | | OK | | | +------+ | +-------------------------------------------------------+
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 18:29 on 03 Nov 2003 Subject: Re: Dialog Boxes > Why can't more people take a page from Apple's HCI guidelines, which > specify that button labels should be verbs? "Quit" and "Debug" would make > so much more sense than "OK" and "Cancel". Apples HCI gudelines are a bit schizophrenic here, because they say the labels should be verbs, but they also say that one could be "Cancel". They appear to have put that in because someone got on their case about "Abort" and they decided to standardise on "Cancel". I haven't yet seen this one, but I'm waiting for it: Do you want to cancel this message? (Don't Cancel) (Cancel) (Cancel) There's a whole barrel of problems with dialog boxes in general I'd be completely ecstatic if I didn't have to hate them any more. 1. Don't pop up a dialog box unless you're the foreground app. Apple does a good job with this, mostly, except the never sufficiently damned iTunes insists on popping up instead of "jumping up and down in the Dock like a Jack Russel Terrier", which is infinitely preferable. 2. Don't pop up more than one dialog box for a given problem. This can be tricky, but at least try to say: Can't connect to these servers, should I continue retrying selected servers? [X] Server 1 Location 1, California [X] Server 2 Location 2, California [ ] Server 3 Location 3, Argentina Or: File access error, can't remove files. (Ignore further errors) (Abandon reinstall) ... 3. If there's an obvious recovery operation, put it in the same dialog box. Can't connect to Server1, try: [Server2 ] (Retry) (Cancel) 4. If an operation can never succeed, let the user disable it. Mail.app insists on trying to connect to my IMAP servers on startup even if I know I'm not on the network and I just want to access local stuff. No matter what options I put in the server settings. "Connect on demand only" is kinda important. 5. If you know you're likely to get an error flood, put it in a separate window you can pull up from the dialog. Mirror failed. (See log) (Retry) (Cancel) Dialog boxes are all too often seen as an afterthought. For a lot of software, particularly stuff that's run in an automated fashion once it's set up, they can be most of the user interface!
From: Simon Cozens Date: 18:48 on 03 Nov 2003 Subject: Re: Dialog Boxes Peter da Silva: > Apples HCI gudelines are a bit schizophrenic here, because they say the > labels should be verbs, but they also say that one could be "Cancel". When did "cancel" stop being a verb?
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 19:05 on 03 Nov 2003 Subject: Re: Dialog Boxes > > Apples HCI gudelines are a bit schizophrenic here, because they say the > > labels should be verbs, but they also say that one could be "Cancel". > When did "cancel" stop being a verb? The point isn't that it's not a verb. The point is that they're supposed to be verbs because they're supposed to be meaningful actions. If one is always "Cancel", then it's not meaningful when "Cancel" isn't a meaningful option. If you're doing a two-step operation, and you decide to abort it after the first step, what does "Cancel" mean? Well, it means "Cancel the last button you pressed", not "Cancel the operation you were performing". You have to *learn* that Cancel has a particular technical meaning that only ever applies to the user interface. It's just as much jargon as "OK" and "Quit" on Windows.
From: Michael G Schwern
Date: 22:22 on 03 Nov 2003
Subject: Re: Dialog Boxes
On Mon, Nov 03, 2003 at 12:40:06PM -0500, Phil!Gregory wrote:
> Dialog boxes are pretty simple creatures. They have some text and some
> buttons. Sometimes the text asks you to make a decision, and press
> different buttons based on your decision. Sometimes the labels on the
> buttons bear *no* resemblance to the actions they perform.
>
> I'm not talking about buttons that outright lie; fortunately, they're
> pretty rare. But in Windows, it's very easy to create dialog boxes with
> "standard" buttons, like "Yes", "No", "OK", and "Cancel". This leads to
> error messages like "The program has died unexpectedly. Press OK to quit
> and Cancel to debug." Oh, yes, "Cancel" is so much like "debug" in
> meaning. Thanks, Microsoft. (Yes, this was a Windows 2000 error.)
Two complete asides here.
Spaceward Ho! has an Armageddon option to destroy half the universe during
a game. In older versions the dialog was something like this:
------------------------------
| Are you sure you want to |
| destroy the universe? |
| |
| [Unsure] [Not Unsure] |
------------------------------
Unfortunately, they changed the armageddon rules in the latest versions so
that dialog is gone. :(
The other is something MJD was telling me about after YAPC in St. Louis.
It was a solution for the problem of user confusion where they hit [No] but
they meant to hit [Yes].
---------------------------------------------------------
| Would you like to delete your hard drive? |
| |
| [Yes] [No] [Yes but I mean No] [No but I mean Yes] |
---------------------------------------------------------
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