Re: [Usability]HIG should advise against Yes/No in confirmation alerts

[Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 12:58:08AM +0100, John Levon wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 11:53:10PM +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:
> 
> > I'd bet money* it is elsewhere in the HIG.  I know it is Gnome policy to
> > have "Do Action" or "Cancel", rather than having a description and then a
> > Yes/No.
> 
> It probably is somewhere else, but if it is, it's damned hard to find
> without reading the whole thing. At least I'd except links to the
> admonition from the "Alert windows" section, and probably from the
> "Language - buttons" section too.

It's here:
  http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/draft_hig/windows.html#alert-button-order

But there are problems.
1) Some alerts have only an OK button and it should be labelled "OK".
   No imperative verb is appropriate. Especially inappropriate is Close,
   which should only appear in instant-apply windows. (And I still say it
   shouldn't appear there either.)

2) In that case (at least), the OK button isn't affirmative; it's confirmative.

3) "For example Find and Log In are better buttons than than Yes and OK."
   To say that X is better than Y or Z implies that Y and Z are equally
    acceptable. (Not logically, but some people will take it that way.)

4) With 3, the reader might think that "No" is an acceptable alternate button.
   Then we end up with the abomination [ No ] [ Cancel ] [ Yes ].

There's another thing that should not be done which the HIG doesn't admonish
against. The phrase "Are you sure?" should not be used. Actually, I can't
think of any kind of alert that should be phrased as a question.


Cheers,
Greg