On 13. Mar 2007, at 01:40, Chris Thomas wrote:
On Mar 12, 2007, at 2:56 PM, Allan Odgaard wrote:
• swap position of Revert and Cancel so that the affirmative
choice is placed where affirmative choices are normally placed,
gets the ↩ as shortcut key, plus makes ⌘. work to cancel the
dialog
But the whole point of this dialog is to prevent accidental data loss.
Yes, but presenting a dialog with swapped Cancel / Okay (Revert)
buttons is IMO a bad thing, as it violates consistency (return is
*always* continue with current action) -- personally I do not read
the text for most dialogs that popup, if I do something dangerous, I
know that any dialog following my dangerous action just needs a
return, or a ⌘. if I chose the action by mistake.
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/
OSXHIGuidelines/XHIGIntro/chapter_1_section_1.html#//apple_ref/doc/
uid/TP30000894-TP6
Don’t use a default button if the most likely action is
dangerous—for example, if it causes a loss of user data. When
there is no default button, pressing Return or Enter has no
effect; the user must explicitly click a button. This guideline
protects users from accidentally damaging their work by pressing
Return or Enter. You can consider using a safe default button,
such as Cancel.
I have to say that I'm not a fan of this sort of dialog ('you
clicked Revert, are you sure you really meant to click Revert?')
in general. It's better than nothing, which is why it's there now,
but better would be to provide undo capability. That may be beyond
the present scope of the Subversion bundle, however. It opens up a
pretty large can of worms.
Yes to both counts, and adding to AHIG (going on a rant here):
I have only seen this done once, it is the iTunes “would you like to
erase the iPod you just plugged in”-dialog. I am slightly inclined
to accept that they make Cancel the default button because plugging
in an iPod is *not* synonymous with erasing all data on said device,
thus if you do get a dialog, after plugging in your iPod, you most
certainly would not expect return in this dialog to start erasing
your drive.
That said, this dialog trips me each and every time, as in, I have to
read all the text and then think for 10 seconds before I dare
continue, because this dialog is quite serious (it will erase my
iPod!), and the buttons do not do what I am used to, i.e. I am used
to return continuing the requested action, thus logically, the
opposite of return (⎋ or ⌘.) would do the opposite of continue
(Cancel) -- but here the Cancel button is marked as default, so I
definitely do not want to hit ⎋ or ⌘. (unlikely they should be
“Erase”, but in my mind, ⎋ and ↩ are opposites, so if one is
A, the other is B), I am also not too keen on pressing return, this
is just a feeling, like, pressing return just has this strong
association with “continue”, and I certainly do not want to
continue, so I end up grabbing the mouse, and clicking the Cancel
button, after much consideration.
The above is really just about associations, not rational at all --
I’ve twice had the chance to observe others being presented with
this dialog, both show the same behavior as me. One of them has a
work and home computer, and his own + his girlfriends iPod, so I am
quite sure he sees this dialog a lot, yet when he plugged in my iPod,
and the dialog appeared, he stopped our conversation, read the full
text, and slowly moved the mouse pointer to click Cancel.
So definitely, if the purpose is to interrupt the user and increase
the mental load, let’s swap the buttons and show the dialog upside
down, but I think the 99% of users, who deliberately pick Revert,
should be spared these mental puzzles ;)
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