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>"Maybe they found that the vast majority of people that add a chapter wanted to buy the book, so they made it the focus." Even assuming that most people wante

>"Maybe they found that the vast majority of people that add a chapter wanted to buy the book, so they made it the focus." Even assuming that most people wanted to buy the book when they opened a book sample's menu (which is unlikely, since you can't even see the book's price in that menu), this does not warrant changing the default selection from a non-destructive, repeatedly used action (for every other document type) to a "destructive" action (for book samples). You just don't randomly change the order of menu items when people expect to see the same order, and you most certainly don't change the default action from something that is used often and is harmless to something that is potentially harmful. >"The ONLY solution to the problem of accidentally order would be to require users to go through a multi-step process of confirming the order" This is a false dichotomy. The choice is not between "make ordering the default action" and "make it absolutely impossible that people will ever order a book by accident." You can vastly improve the situation without solving every edge case. The solution is simple: don't make buying the book the default action. If people have to consciously switch to a "buy book" menu entry, accidental book orders would very likely be cut down to a fraction of what they are now. >"User experience, of which UI design is just one part, is much more important" I don't see how the distinction is relevant in this context. Are you suggesting that accidentally ordering a book is a good user experience? :-)

jasonlotito 16y ago
> You just don't randomly change the order of menu items when people expect to see the same order, and you most certainly don't change the default action from something that is used often and is harmless to something that is potentially harmful. You keep using the word random. I don't think you know what it means, as the ordering is not random. You can keep calling it that, but it's not. They aren't randomly changing anything. They are presenting, it seems, the most commonly used action as the default. > You can vastly improve the situation without solving every edge case. Have you considered that maybe your the edge case here? I'm not suggesting they have to make some concrete choice. I'm saying that the default choice should be the most commonly used choice for a scenario. >I don't see how the distinction is relevant in this context. Are you suggesting that accidentally ordering a book is a good user experience? :-) No, I'm saying that making it easy to do the common thing is better than solving for situations like yours: the rare, edge cases. For the average user, this could be a better user experience. For you, it isn't. Should they design for you, or for the average user?
- LukasMathis 16y ago
  >"You keep using the word random. I don't think you know what it means, as the ordering is not random." The word "random" has more than one meaning. I'm using it in the colloquial sense of lacking context or being unexpected. I obviously don't mean that there is a random number generator switching up the position of the entries. Instead, I mean that to the user, the order is unpredictable or unexpected. As for the rest of your comment, I would like to remind you that you are arguing for a user interface that replaces a benign default action with a destructive default action. It is, of course, possible that I am the only person who was affected by this. It's just not very likely. Simply asserting—without evidence—that most people won't encounter the problem is not a useful response when somebody points out a problem. And again, I very much doubt that buying the book is the most commonly used action in that list, since, as I've pointed out, you can't actually see the price of the book when you're in that menu. Again, I acknowledge that I might theoretically be in the minority, but I tend to not buy things when I don't know how much they cost, and I suspect that most people behave similarly.

jasonlotito 16y ago

> You just don't randomly change the order of menu items when people expect to see the same order, and you most certainly don't change the default action from something that is used often and is harmless to something that is potentially harmful. You keep using the word random. I don't think you know what it means, as the ordering is not random. You can keep calling it that, but it's not. They aren't randomly changing anything. They are presenting, it seems, the most commonly used action as the default. > You can vastly improve the situation without solving every edge case. Have you considered that maybe your the edge case here? I'm not suggesting they have to make some concrete choice. I'm saying that the default choice should be the most commonly used choice for a scenario. >I don't see how the distinction is relevant in this context. Are you suggesting that accidentally ordering a book is a good user experience? :-) No, I'm saying that making it easy to do the common thing is better than solving for situations like yours: the rare, edge cases. For the average user, this could be a better user experience. For you, it isn't. Should they design for you, or for the average user?

LukasMathis 16y ago
>"You keep using the word random. I don't think you know what it means, as the ordering is not random." The word "random" has more than one meaning. I'm using it in the colloquial sense of lacking context or being unexpected. I obviously don't mean that there is a random number generator switching up the position of the entries. Instead, I mean that to the user, the order is unpredictable or unexpected. As for the rest of your comment, I would like to remind you that you are arguing for a user interface that replaces a benign default action with a destructive default action. It is, of course, possible that I am the only person who was affected by this. It's just not very likely. Simply asserting—without evidence—that most people won't encounter the problem is not a useful response when somebody points out a problem. And again, I very much doubt that buying the book is the most commonly used action in that list, since, as I've pointed out, you can't actually see the price of the book when you're in that menu. Again, I acknowledge that I might theoretically be in the minority, but I tend to not buy things when I don't know how much they cost, and I suspect that most people behave similarly.