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

[John Levon <levon movementarian org>]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 11:33:20AM -0400, Sean Middleditch wrote:

> The HIG does cover this (last time I read thru it, anyways, which wasn't
> long ago) - you should _never_ say "we should do this action, is that
> ok?", but instead state "there is this condition/state, what do you want
> to do?" and put the actions in the buttons.

Well, the example dialogs do not do this for the Primary Text.

> The reasoning is pretty good.  The problem is that the meaning of Yes
> and No is wholly dependent on the way the question is phrased.  If you
> have "You have unsaved changes, save first? [Yes][No]" in one app, and
> "You have unsaved changes, quit anyway? [Yes][No]" in another, the user

Hold on a minute, I wasn't arguing for using Yes/No, I thought we'd
already agreed that sucked :)

I'm asking for a rationale for the "never ask a question" statement.

regards,
john