Re: [Usability] Friendly words from an application

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Mon, 24 Jan 2005, Kalle Vahlman wrote:

> Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 12:46:07 +0200
> From: Kalle Vahlman <kalle vahlman gmail com>
> Reply-To: zuh iki fi
> To: usability gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Friendly words from an application
>
> I thought this was so nice that I'd share it...
>
> I installed the Barbie(tm) Riding Club software for my daughter, and
> verified by a test run that it actually works (honestly, I didn't ride
> it for fun at all ;). When I was exiting the program, I got this
> strange confirmation alert that didn't feel quite like the one's I've
> encountered before. It didn't ask if I wanted to quit (nobody want's
> to quit anything) or anything, it asked if I was _ready_ to leave.
>
> I thought this was a quite nice way to put it, and started thinking
> that perhaps if programs wouldn't call the user a quitter if their
> work is not saved, they would enjoy the experience more. This in fact
> is what IIRC the HIG recommends also.

Choosing your words carefully can make a significant difference.

I've always like how the following two phrases ask for the same
information in two completely different way:

  How long are you staying?
  When are you leaving?

I was pretty sure the Guidelines recommended against "Friendly Words" and
getting carried away with politeness or saying please and thank you all
over the place.

Asking a users if they really want to leave seems like a patronising
question to me, why else would they have hit the Exit/Quit/Leave button?

If the application was smart enough to save the current information and
not lose anything it should be able to quit safely without needing to ask
for confirmation before doing so.

In the context of childrens software the langauge has greater potential to
be educational and helpful but in more pracitical worker orientated
software such politness can become very quickly annoying if the program is
other wise doing something you dont like (or even crashing).  If someone
is being mean to you or ignoring reasonable requests it is twice as bad if
they are grinning like a buffoon as they do it.  Computers are generally
supposed to about getting thing done, whereas games and educational
software are more about getting there and the journey and sometimes
figuring out the interface if part of the puzzle.  So long as designers
understand the basic rules of usability and design they can then better
understand when to make exceptions.

> Have you finished reading this message?-)

Almost ...

- Alan