>> The system should never present an error message to a user unless the user >> has done everything right but the system itself cannot respond correctly. >> Users should otherwise never be allowed to make "errors." >> > >I second that. In fact, I preach it often. >
Okay, so what about this situation:You come to a screen to pay your bills and there are empty fields to enter in different dollar amounts and a "Make Payments" button. The user might make the error of pressing the button without entering any dollar amounts. I think it's fair to call this an error. One way to prevent this would be to disable the button and give it that grayed out visual treatment until they enter a dollar amount but that would mean that when they arrive at the page they'll see a "broken" button. Will they realize that it's because they haven't entered any payment amounts yet or will they see the grayed out button and think, "Why can't I make payments?" I think I'd lean towards showing an enabled button and then giving a "You did not enter a dollar amount." error message if they pressed it. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Mitch On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 11:18 AM, Scott Berkun <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Yes - I'd go even further and blame development tools. Here's a theory: > > 1. The design of development tools is indifferent to the making of good UI. > 2. Programmers are efficient (or lazy :) > > Therefore > > 3. Programmers will tend to make bad UI... until development tools make it > almost as easy to make good UI as it is to make lazy UI. > > A development tool that makes it easy to follow basic UI guidelines is 20 > times more valuable than any book on UI design. Instead of blaming > programmers, it'd be better to aim at the programmers who make tools for > programmers. > > -Scott > > Scott Berkun > www.scottberkun.com > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Saffer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "IxDA Discuss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 8:59 AM > Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling > MenuItems) > > > I will say that this isn't only just an expedient method for developers--I >> can tell when I'm getting lazy in my thinking when the best I can offer is >> a pop-up error message. It can be an easy trap for designers to fall into as >> well. >> > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
