

Are You Sure? - draegtun
http://prog21.dadgum.com/205.html

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unfamiliar
All of the ideas suggested as alternatives are mind-blowingly unintuitive. Can
you imagine an entire OS running on obscure gestures like that?

The reason the "are you sure" model has survived for so long is that it is
basically perfect. A trash icon clearly signals that that is how you delete a
file. The problem of accidental deletions is avoided by the confirmation
dialog.

This strikes me as reinventing the wheel but badly, change for the sake of
creating the illusion of progress. Yes, it's good to reconsider old dogmas.
But it is usually better to start with something that is actually a problem
before trying to fix it.

~~~
vog
_> But it is usually better to start with something that is actually a problem
before trying to fix it._

While I agree that the proposed solutions are worse than what we currently
have, there is indeed a problem. From the article:

 _| But for everyone else the little prompt quickly becomes part of a two-
button sequence that finds its way into your muscle memory._

The problem is that on some systems, these questions pop up way too often.
That makes them annoying without actually providing protection in the worst
case (due to muscle memory).

For example, if an action can be easily undone, there's no need to ask for
confirmation.

More generally, I believe the real problem is to decide properly when to ask
and when not to ask.

