Re: UI: "Direct manipulation" is in conflict with "Forgiveness"
Re: UI: "Direct manipulation" is in conflict with "Forgiveness"
- Subject: Re: UI: "Direct manipulation" is in conflict with "Forgiveness"
- From: Matt Neuburg <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 10:21:02 -0700
On Wed, 18 Sep 2002 21:43:53 -0700, Jay Prince
<email@hidden> said:
>
On Wednesday, September 18, 2002, at 04:49 pm, Charles Srstka wrote:
>
>
> Here's how I do it. I load the settings into my controls when I open
>
> the prefs window, and I check the controls and write the prefs when
>
> the user clicks the "OK" button. I don't actually write the changes
>
> until the user clicks that button. If they click Cancel, it just
>
> closes the window, and nothing is changed. In either case, there is no
>
> confirmation dialog box (there doesn't need to be! That's what the OK
>
> and Cancel buttons serve as).
>
>
That's the method I was thinking about, but I didn't want someone to
>
accidentally hit cancel after doing a lot of configuration and loose
>
ALL their changes.
I think your problem is really a meditation on how stupid to assume the
user is. It is easy to see, though, that if you query the user to
double-check at every step you soon run into a never-ending hall of
mirrors: "Are you sure you want to save this document?" "Okay, but are you
really sure you want to save this document?" "Are you really, really
sure??" Sooner or later one must simply assume that the user pressed the
Save button or the Cancel button because (duh) he wants to Save or Cancel
or whatever it says on the button.
So the question you're asking is simply when to stop protecting the user
from himself and let him do what he said he wants to do. The problem is
that in overly worrying about the idiot user you're getting in the way of
the normal user who really means what he says and is just going to get
exasperated with you for questioning his intentions. Your job is to get out
of this user's way and make his experience seamless - even if it means that
idiots can shoot themselves in the foot.
One good compromise (well, a compromise anyway) is a power-user feature
that bypasses the double-check. Everyone was driven mad at first by the new
dialogs when you try to shut down or restart your computer in Jaguar, but
then they realized that you can bypass this with Option and resigned
themselves to it.
In the case of a Cancel button, though, since nothing is lost except the
user's time, I say just obey and there's the end of it. Things are a little
different with Save where old information is about to be over-written.
m.
--
matt neuburg, phd = email@hidden,
http://www.tidbits.com/matt
pantes anthropoi tou eidenai oregontai phusei
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