Re: [Usability] close icon is misleading

[Vidar Braut Haarr <vidar coretrek no>]

on 10.09.2003 14:44 Calum Benson said the following:
> On Wed, 2003-09-10 at 02:21, Maxwell Terpstra wrote:
> > [...] The 'X' icon implies that changes made in the
> > dialogue will be cancelled when the button is pushed, [...]
> [...] shouldn't really have 'X' buttons on
> their titlebar at all, [...]
Remove the X on the titlebar -- agreed.

> Having said that, within the constraints of the current UI guidelines 
> (i.e. without removing the big "Close" button, which is a different
> debate), what can we do any better to indicate that it will both close
> the window and keep the settings, and that if it didn't keep them, it
> would be labelled "Cancel" instead?  The only thing I can think of is
> some tooltip ugliness... I suspect this might be one of those things
> that people will just have to learn. 

Lets compare Settings Dialogs to a house:
You enter the house through a door. You walk around and move stuff. Like 
turn the TV upside down or move the refrigerator into your bedroom. Then 
you leave the house through a /door/, by /closing/ it (well, first 
opening it, but.. :).

So in computer-language, this means that the button for closing the 
settings dialog should say 'Close', but the icon could resemble an 
handle or - perhaps - an entire door.

OK vs. Close:
An OK button can be compared to a burglar-alarm context: You are about 
to leave the house, and turn on the alarm. Then, you know that by 
closing your front door, you tell the alarm-system: "OK, you can turn 
yourself on now.".

--
Vidar Braut Haarr

"Programmers don't die,
they just GOSUB without RETURN."