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

[Billie Mandel]

Alan -

Thanks for chiming in - I was hoping you would  :-)

You said:

"Good interaction design is much more of a power play between
programmers having fun playing with their toys and interaction designers
looking out for the needs of users than it is a puzzle for someone to
solve." 

I'd say it's both - in particular when designing in constrained
spaces/devices.  You're always going to have the
people/communication/negotiation piece in product development - that's
one of the things that makes my job, at least, fun and exciting.  

I do think that there is a "puzzle to be solved" aspect of designing
within technology constraints (such as what we've got in the mobile
space, with small screens, hardware predefinitions, weird technical
"what's under the hood-ness" like client/server models and memory
constraints, and operator requirements).  To me it's kind of like
writing sonnets - some of the beauty comes from the overall finesse of
the craft, and some of it comes from fitting artfully into that very
defined structure.

Which brings me to:
"Confirmation dialogs simply don't achieve the goals they are
asked to. Making everything undo-able does."

I totally agree.  However -- I'm working in a constrained technology
space that (in the words of a designer I interviewed recently) can be
compared to designing for the Atari. Fewer pixels with which to
gracefully warn users what's going to happen when they press button X,
less memory in which to cache things on the device and from which to
restore them if they are mistakenly deleted.  Plus, less contextual
patience within the users' mental models for waiting for operations that
take their sweet time to talk to the server.  

To me, at least, this is a very interesting set of problems.  How would
you say these type of constraints change the discussion?
  
Cheers, 
 - Billie


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Billie Mandel
Manager, User Experience Design & Research
OPENWAVE
billie.mandel at openwave.com