One of an ongoing series of articles discussing usability issues in technology and how to improve the overall experience for the user
It’s perfectly human to make mistakes: everybody’s done it. That’s why computers make it easy for you to undo your last action, and that’s why applications should do too.
Some applications ask if you’re sure if you want to do this action, with a confirmation box. This is bad!
The confirm box appears so often now, people ignore it. It becomes part of the process to do that action. Want to delete a file? Hit delete and enter. Even if you really really didn’t want to delete that file, it’s too late: the file’s gone. Because you automatically hit ‘yes’ when it asks you if you are sure.
It’s like asking a colleague to make you a cup of coffee when it’s their turn to do the office tea-round. They wouldn’t respond saying “Are you sure you want a coffee?”, because it’s just silly. And if they did, as with confirmation boxes, you’d just end up saying “Can I have a coffee please? … Yes”.
Undo is the only way to confidently ensure that no problems occur from making a mistake. Whether it’s accidentally deleting that file and being able to retrieve it from the recycle bin, or hitting the wrong option in a form and having the ability to go back. Give the user security in the knowledge that if they do something wrong, it doesn’t matter.
Let’s stop making people too scared to use computers.