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Re: Whither book "Developing Windows Error Messages"
Subject:Re: Whither book "Developing Windows Error Messages" From:Charlotte Hybschmann Jacobsen <chjac -at- AMROSE -dot- SPO -dot- DK> Date:Wed, 23 Dec 1998 08:10:02 +0100
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martha J Davidson [mailto:editrix -at- SLIP -dot- NET]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 1998 11:53 PM
> To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject: Re: Whither book "Developing Windows Error Messages"
>
> What about all of the times I *knew* what I wanted to do, but
> my fingers
> still clicked the wrong button? I'm often grateful for those
> "Are you really
> sure?" messages; they've saved me from "oh @#%#!, how can I get out
> of this without having to recreate everything?" any number of times.
>
>
I too, like Chuck Martin, am a Cooper-fan ("About Face: The Essentials
of User Interface Design" by Alan Cooper, ISBN 1568843224) and I agree
that error messages should be made unnecessary by making user interfaces
better.
Another one of Cooper's statements are that every action a user take
should be reversible, that is no matter what you do, you can undo it
again. My developers agree but they also tell me that this often takes a
lot of programming effort to effectuate.