Sign in
in
   
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
-Aristotle

About Me

I am a co-founder of Notches, an early stage startup currently based in NYC. We are building a free, open reviews network that anyone can participate in and anyone can build on top of. You can find out more on our official blog.

Read more about my background.

Connect with me on...

Recent Readers

Flickr Photos

 

Warning:

This article is more than 45 days old. Given the speed at which the technology world moves, this post is probably somewhat out of date. Please keep this in mind when reading the post. If this is a tutorial, please check whether you are using the same versions mentioned in the article.

Be positive in your dialogs

Raymond says that dialog boxes are not the place for logic puzzles.

I ran across a configuration dialog box that had the item "Turn off Feature X". This is a negative-sense checkbox, which turns your dialog box into a logic puzzle. Checkboxes should be phrased positively. "Use Feature X". (The only exception to the "no negative checkboxes" rule is the "don't show me this message again" checkbox.)

Negative-sense checkboxes turn into a game of confuse-the-user. "If I uncheck 'Turn off Feature X', then I'm not not running it."

It gives the impression that your program is trying to sneak something past the user the same way malware does, or the same way eight-year-olds do when they're trying to bamboozle their parents.

"Can I not not not not not not not go to Jimmy's house?"

It is a simple thing but can really save your users from time and frustration trying to decipher your language.

Only published comments... May 01 2007, 09:00 AM by Tim

View related posts

No Comments