Usability Forum

Form full of fail

By Eddie Lopez. Wednesday, 7. January 2009, 02:22:30

A dialog/form that could have been designed better:

Yes/No buttons should ideally only refer to one question
"Continue" is ambiguous in this case- continue to remove the item from my cart? Or continue with the purchase as is?
The "dominate" question is the "Are you sure you want..." but the HR tags are grouping the "Do you want to continue.." with the Yes/No buttons. Clearly some interaction design work could be done here.

Christmas leftovers and Kids Toy's PackagingLink: The Washing Machine That Ate My Sari - Mistakes in Cross-Cultural Design

Comments

Eddie Lopez # 7. January 2009, 02:35

Wowza- The image won't upload/display properly, so it's linked for your pleasure. Sorry.

Omega Junior # 7. January 2009, 07:09

"Are you sure?"-dialogs are useless. Of course the user is sure, otherwise they wouldn't have started the action.

Asking the user whether they are sure should have the user pause and think about their actions. Instead, the user gets annoyed and will most likely hit the OK button without further thinking... without reading the dialog text... without knowing what will happen when confirming or cancelling... meaning it doesn't matter whether the author wrote a clear or a confusing text.

If the author wants to know for a fact that the action was no mistake, the author can add a check box which the user has to tick before the action can start. Then afterwards, an "Undo" function might help the user out if they choose to change their mind.

Dan Alexandru # 7. January 2009, 08:51

I agree that there is no need for "are you sure". Just offer an unobtrusive report after the action, along with the possibility to undo it.

To me, "all lines will no longer be part of a FamilyTalk plan" is the most confusing part, since the redundant question requires the same answer as the one in bold.

WillYum # 7. January 2009, 08:59

... gag ...

Eddie Lopez # 7. January 2009, 13:58

I'll add one more vote for a smart "undo" system rather than an "are you sure?" prompt.

WillYum # 7. January 2009, 18:20

This is a fight I had to have with developers at my last job. As a "test engineer" I wanted a confirmation popup only in the most extreme situations. However, programmers are just so damn used to them that they think popups are the end-all-be-all. It was so annoying.

We had a popup on one of the most performed operations in the application (where it would could have a serious visual detrimental effect on actual hardware) it couldn't "break" anything but it was serious.... but 99 times out of 100 you just wanted to do it. You weren't in a situation where it could have negative consequences.

Consequently when you had that 1 time when you didn't want it to do it automatically, you blew past the popup and then desperately canceled. It was annoying.

That said, on my own programming of websites, the "undo" functionality is much harder to program than a "are you sure you want to delete this post forever?" button.

Yum

Omega Junior # 15. January 2009, 10:51

I appreciate the effort it takes to make applications smart, and have them predict what the user will do next. It requires the programmer to place themselves in the shoes of the user, and actually use their own application. This is why all programmers should learn how to create interfaces and perform usability tests, as well as draw up application requirements, before learning how to program. Instead of a code monkey, they should strive to be developers.

I too am a software developer. And I too, still create useless confirmation dialogs. Articles like these remind me to keep paying attention to the needs of my clients, rather than my own. (Granted, sometimes we need to tell the client that their requirement is really, really dumb and annoying...)