[Usability] Placement of "Don't ask me again" checkbox in dialog windows

[Richard Atterer <richard list03 atterer net>]

Hello,

please CC me on replies - thanks!

AFAICT the current HIG do not discuss whether/how to place a checkbox "Do
not ask me this question again" in dialog boxes. The most popular way to do
it is like this:

   -----------------------------------
  | Start worldwide thermonuclear     |
  | warfare now?                      |
  |                                   |
  | (X) Don't ask me about this again |
  |                                   |
  |                    Cancel  Start  |
   -----------------------------------

I see two problems with this:

1) Once the "don't ask me again" was selected, it is usually not obvious at
all how to re-enable the respective dialog box. I have no solution for
this... Maybe at least the HIG could provide suggestions what the
respective preferences section should look like?
   
2) The dialog is confusing; it asks for two decisions at the same time, and
the less important one ("don't ask again") comes last, i.e. closer to the
point where the user makes his decision.

I've seen this fail in real life while looking over someone's shoulder; to
make matters worse, the dialog's buttons were labelled "Yes" and "No", and
it became obvious the user clicked on "No" because he meant "No, don't ask
me about this again." To complicate things further, the "don't" and the
"No" button are a double negation, so the user completely misread the
dialog.

To make the dialog work better, the following could help:

 - Don't use "Yes" and "No" buttons. This is already addressed by the HIG - 
   but I'd even go as far as deprecating the standard Gnome Yes/No buttons.
   
 - /Maybe/ use a positive sentence, not a negated one - for example "Keep 
   asking me this question in the future" instead of "*Don't* ask me
   again". A problem with this might be that due to common practice, the
   negation is already firmly planted in people's minds, so it might do
   more harm than good.
   Hmmm, a wording which is equivalent to "Don't ask me again" but avoids 
   the negation is "Always use this answer in the future without asking".
 
 - Don't place the "Don't ask me again" like it is placed above

WRT the last point, the two alternatives are to place it above the main 
question or below the buttons:

  1)                                     2)
   -----------------------------------    -----------------------------------
  | (X) Don't ask me about this again |  | Start worldwide thermonuclear     |
  |                                   |  | warfare now?                      |
  | Start worldwide thermonuclear     |  |                                   |
  | warfare now?                      |  |                    Cancel  Start  |
  |                                   |  |                                   |
  |                    Cancel  Start  |  | (X) Don't ask me about this again |
   -----------------------------------    -----------------------------------

Neither of these is ideal, but IMHO both are better than the original. With
1), the "Don't ask me again" is placed too prominently, and with 2) the
user might click on a button before having read the checkbox text. However,
even if the latter happened, it would not be a problem in practice, so I'd
go for 2) - what do you think?

Cheers,

  Richard

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