Re: [Usability] close icon is misleading



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."




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