[IxDA Discuss] Confirmation dialogs - the devil himself, or a necessary evil?

[Billie Mandel]

Hi all - 

 

So our esteemed colleagues Messrs. Cooper and Reimann have told us that
confirmation dialogs are insulting and stupid, to be avoided at all
costs -- and in general, I agree with them.  

 

The question, though, is whether there are any cases where it makes
sense to use them.  The potential ones my team has discussed are 

-         when the user is about to delete something that s/he has
already gone out of the way to pay for, and would need to pay for again
if s/he wanted to re-add

-         when it's relatively easy to make a mistake, because of
something out of your control about the hardware you're designing for
(i.e. the hardware manufacturer didn't sufficiently "hide the ejector
seat lever" - I love that metaphor...)

-         for an important edge case in an overall system where such
dialogs aren't frequently used 

 

What do you guys think? Are these, in fact, cases in which to use
confirmation dialogs?  If so, are there others?  Or are these things
inherently evil? 

 

Cheers, 

- Billie

 

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Billie Mandel

Manager, User Experience Design & Research

OPENWAVE

billie.mandel at openwave.com <mailto:billie.mandel at openwave.com>