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

[Josh Viney]

To say that confirmation dialogs are pure evil or completely unnecessary
would be a mistake. I've found that they can be extremely useful in web apps
in two specific cases.

The first, when there is no "undo" and the desired action risks permanent
change is fairly significant. Consider a content management system about to
publish changes to a site live. Not such a bad idea to ask "are you sure you
want to publish something that everyone with web access can see?" before
publishing.

The second, when you don't want users to do something. This is a tricky
case, but there are occasions when users must be allowed to do something
that is not optimal for the business. Think about a subscription based
service. Putting a small roadblock in front of users who want to cancel
their accounts can be huge.

Of course, I think that confirmation dialogs are frequently abused and
products of poor product design or messaging. In the subscription based
service example above - isn't there a better way to increase lifetime value
of users than preventing them from leaving? There probably is.

-- 
Josh Viney
EastMedia Group
http://www.eastmedia.com