aries@rhi.hi.is (Reynir Hugason) (08/24/90)
Hi don't take this too seriously but,
here's a deep question for Apple's "Emotional Engineers" :-)
Why on heaven and earth does there always have to be a blasted OK button in
every error dialog. What precisly is so very much "OK" about: "Your hard-disk
is full (OK), or "This disk is damaged; consequently, unusable (OK)," both of
which are quite definatly not OK! Unless this "OK" is some defused version of
the original word, meaning acknowledged or something like that. Wouldn't it
be better to (a) include a button with some very "heavy" swearing,
or (b) include two buttons one which says "OK" and another which says "NOT OK"
both of which accomplish the same thing (just to make a point :-)).
Or is everybody so absolutly positive in AppleLand ?-)
P.S.: By the way what's the ip number of apple.com?
---
Mimir (aries@rhi.hi.is)
/// Never put of till to-morrow the fun you can have to-day.
- Huxley's BNWian motto.
Disclaimer: Go ahead - make my day!emerson@uvm-gen.UUCP (Tree,,,) (08/31/90)
From article <2093@krafla.rhi.hi.is>, by aries@rhi.hi.is (Reynir Hugason): > > Hi don't take this too seriously but, Ok, I won't. 8-) > here's a deep question for Apple's "Emotional Engineers" :-) I'm not one, but I'll give it a shot. > Why on heaven and earth does there always have to be a blasted OK button in > every error dialog. What precisly is so very much "OK" about: "Your hard-disk > is full (OK), or "This disk is damaged; consequently, unusable (OK)," both of > which are quite definatly not OK! Unless this "OK" is some defused version of > the original word, meaning acknowledged or something like that. Wouldn't it > be better to (a) include a button with some very "heavy" swearing, or > (b) include two buttons one which says "OK" and another which says "NOT OK" > both of which accomplish the same thing (just to make a point :-)). The OK is used to tell the application (or system, or whatever) that you have seen the dialog and you acknowledge that it was there. Now, a recent Human Interface Note (Number 10, I think, tho I'm not positive) states that if at all possible, the "OK" button (or accept button, if you prefer) be named in a way that makes sense to the dialog. So, in your case, something like: +--------------------------------------------------------+ | Spiffy Your hard-disk is full, so you can't save | | Icon the 100 page report/program/whatever you | | have been working on for the last 8 hours. | | | | ( OH SH*T ) | +--------------------------------------------------------+ Might be acceptable. I suppose it is up to the individual designer of the application. > Mimir (aries@rhi.hi.is) > /// Never put of till to-morrow the fun you can have to-day. > - Huxley's BNWian motto. Tom +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | The three most dangerous things in the | | | world are a programmer with a soldering | Tom Emerson | | iron, a hardware guy with a software | emerson@griffin.uvm.edu | | patch, and a user with an idea. | | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke) (09/05/90)
This is one of my peeves as well. It is adding insult to injury to make a user "agree" to something unpleasant that has just happened. I seem to remember seeing some dialogs in the Finder that had "Oh well" instead of "OK," but I don't remember which ones they were. I use "Oh well" for all my unpleasant messages. Eric Pepke INTERNET: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET: pepke@fsu Florida State University SPAN: scri::pepke Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 BITNET: pepke@fsu Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions. Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.
Curbow@apple.com (David Curbow) (10/03/90)
I'm one of the Human Interface people at Apple, so I'll give you our current thinking about the "OK" button. You are right in arguing that "OK" isn't always the right button name. We have begun advising our registered developers (via Human Interface Note #10, May 17, 1990) that the action button should be better worded. This advice will eventually appear in a new version of the Human Interface Guidelines (or somewhere), but here's the relevant part now. Begin quote Alert boxes that provide the user a choice should be worded as questions to which there is an unambiguous affermative response. The button for this affirmative response is called the action button. Whenever possible, label the action button with the action that it performs. Button names such as "Save", "Quit", or "Erase Disk" allow experienced users to click the correct button without reading the text of a familiar dialog. These labels are often clearer than words like "OK" or "Yes". Avoid negatively-phrased questions because they inevitably cause confusion as to what the action button will do. If the action can't be condensed conveniently into a word of two, use "OK". Also use "OK" when the alert is simply giving the user information without providing any choices. Whenever possible, provide a button that allows the user to back out of the operation that caused the alert box to be displayed. This button is activated when the user types command-. (command-period) of hits the Escape key. Frequently this button is named "Cancel", but use a more specific name if it's concise and unambiguous, such as "Don't Erase". ... End quote So, why do we use "OK" when your disk is damaged and there's nothing you can do? We need something to allow the user to say "I've read this" and OK has historically be the action verb. You're right that some heavy swearing might help, but of course that's not going to be acceptable to many of our users. Your other proposal "include two buttons one which says "OK" and another which says "NOT OK" both of which accomplish the same thing (just to make a point :-)" is not workable because it would make some users think that they were able to get out of the situation - but they can't. We encourage developers to allow users to cancel from every operation possible, so users shouldn't (heavy emphasis) see many alerts like you describe. Unfortunately sometimes there is no recovery possible. Hope this has helped. Dave Curbow