You’ll Never Guess Which Company Wrote This Horrendous Yes/No Confirmation Dialog Box

Yes/No dialogs are always a bad idea — I’ve never seen one that couldn’t be better-written using different, clearer words for the buttons. Writing is a big part of UI design. My rule of thumb: assume the user won’t read anything other than the buttons. E.g., when you log out of Mac OS X, you get a confirmation dialog with two buttons: “Cancel” and “Log Out”. Crystal clear.

(Thanks to Joe Clark.)

Update: Fireballed. Here it is in Google’s cache.

★ Tuesday, 15 June 2010