Re: [Usability] HIG Clarification for "Close Without Saving" button

[Kai Willadsen <kaiw itee uq edu au>]

On Tue, 2005-02-01 at 16:54 +0000, Alan Horkan wrote:
> [removed the CC's]
> 
> On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 danilo gnome org wrote:
> >
> > I'll answer on this one.  It would make sense to have "Discard",
> > "Save", "Cancel" if the question was "There are some unsaved changes
> > in this document.  What do you want to do with these changes?"
> >
> > I.e. it must be clear that "Discard" or "Save" is about _changes_,
> > whereas "Cancel" is about the action of closing.
> 
> That is excellent because lets face it the important issue is not
> closing but making sure the user does not unintentially lose
> any information.
> 
> I think it is much clearer and less abiguous if we avoid repation of the
> same word with a negative in front of it.  (Don't Save)
> 
> I think that Discard is much stronger language than "Close without Saving"
> and users might be more likely to consider it something they probably dont
> want to do.

The problem with "Discard" is that as a verb in a dialog in a document-
based application, it should apply to the document, and it doesn't.
You're not asking whether the user wants to discard the document, just
whether they want to discard the changes, which isn't apparent unless
you read the whole dialog text.

In contrast, "Save" makes sense regardless - you're saving the document,
or you're saving changes to the document. "Don't save" works similarly,
as does "Close without saving".

> I reiterate that I think a long phrase on a button label is not
> aesthetically pleasing.

Yes, but it's a lot clearer.

How about "Discard changes"? (which is, incidentally, the button in the
GIMP close-multiple-documents window)

-- 
Kai Willadsen <kaiw itee uq edu au>