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New Outlook.com confirmation dialog is well-designed

6 points by oDot 10y ago

netsharc 10y ago
It's been a design philosophy of Apple's to label the buttons to correspond with the action, instead of just OK/Cancel or Yes/No/Cancel. I think it's even been there since the 1990's... To quote their design guideline (https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/WindowAlerts.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000957-CH44-SW1 https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserEx...): Ensure that the default button name corresponds to the action you describe. In particular, it’s a good idea to avoid using OK for the default button. The meaning of OK can be unclear even in alerts that ask if users are sure they want to do something. For example, does OK mean “OK, I want to complete the action” or “OK, I now understand the negative results my action would have caused”? Using a more focused button name, such as Erase, Convert, Clear, or Delete, helps make sure that users understand the action they’re taking.
- ianlevesque 10y ago
  Yeah, arguably in this case using Discard and Cancel would be better than Discard and "Don't Discard". Having a consistent naming across dialogs for the cancel action is really helpful and when the actions themselves are descriptive it further differentiates the wording of the two actions.
- jakobegger 10y ago
  Dialogs on OS X are really great. They always follow a pattern: Do you want to do something? Here's what will happen if you do something. [Cancel] [Do Something] For example: Are you sure you want to permanently erase the items in the Trash? You can’t undo this action [Cancel] [Empty Trash] It's also pretty easy to write clear copy when you stick to this system! It's also nice that the non-destructive button is always labelled "Cancel". If unsure what to do; if your cat ran over the keyboard, just click "Cancel" and nothing bad will happen. I only had an issue once when I was working on a kind of activity monitor that displayed running operations and allowed you to cancel them. Do you want to cancel the operation? [Cancel] [Cancel Operation] Yeah, that doesn't work.

6 points by oDot 10y ago

It's been a design philosophy of Apple's to label the buttons to correspond with the action, instead of just OK/Cancel or Yes/No/Cancel. I think it's even been there since the 1990's... To quote their design guideline (https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/WindowAlerts.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000957-CH44-SW1 https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserEx...): Ensure that the default button name corresponds to the action you describe. In particular, it’s a good idea to avoid using OK for the default button. The meaning of OK can be unclear even in alerts that ask if users are sure they want to do something. For example, does OK mean “OK, I want to complete the action” or “OK, I now understand the negative results my action would have caused”? Using a more focused button name, such as Erase, Convert, Clear, or Delete, helps make sure that users understand the action they’re taking.

ianlevesque 10y ago
Yeah, arguably in this case using Discard and Cancel would be better than Discard and "Don't Discard". Having a consistent naming across dialogs for the cancel action is really helpful and when the actions themselves are descriptive it further differentiates the wording of the two actions.
jakobegger 10y ago
Dialogs on OS X are really great. They always follow a pattern: Do you want to do something? Here's what will happen if you do something. [Cancel] [Do Something] For example: Are you sure you want to permanently erase the items in the Trash? You can’t undo this action [Cancel] [Empty Trash] It's also pretty easy to write clear copy when you stick to this system! It's also nice that the non-destructive button is always labelled "Cancel". If unsure what to do; if your cat ran over the keyboard, just click "Cancel" and nothing bad will happen. I only had an issue once when I was working on a kind of activity monitor that displayed running operations and allowed you to cancel them. Do you want to cancel the operation? [Cancel] [Cancel Operation] Yeah, that doesn't work.