Could scaring users be good UX?

Question

I work on an application that's designed to be usable by new users, but has a lot of complicated configuration for advanced users. Our approach to keeping users away from delicate settings is to make them 'scary'. They are tucked away in an 'Expert' menu, and configuration parameters are given 'scary' (as opposed to nice, readable) names such as UseBxfrMethod, and no indication of what they do (outside of our online documentation/man page).

For applications which will be used by both 'novices' and 'experts' is the 'scaring' approach good UX? Or would some other approach be better?

Note: A similar 'scaring' approach is employed by Mozilla, albeit with a bit more humour:

Answer 1

Progressive disclosure

Deferring advanced features to a secondary screen is one of the best ways to satisfy the conflicting requirements of power and simplicity. This is called progressive disclosure. You seem to be aware of this.

Intimidating users

An example of progressive disclosure is a search box. The search box typically contains a link to an advanced search page since including advanced options on the same page will most likely confuse novice users. Jakob Nielsen recommends using an intimidating name:

It is important to use an intimidating name like "advanced search" to scare off novice users from getting into the page and hurting themselves. Search is one of the few cases where I do recommend shaping the user's behavior by intimidation.

Communicating risk

Consider this, a user with many years of experience using other applications is still a novice with respect to your application. I understand your concern that fearless novice users might ignore an intimidating name like "advanced settings". However, names such as UseBxfrMethod and requiring expert users to read manuals will likely be a "turn off" especially if they are not loyal users.

A better approach would be to have multiple secondary displays. For example, you could group harmless settings in one display and dangerous settings in another and clearly indicate the risk involved in progressing to the dangerous set of options while offering an easy way to access relevant parts of the documentation.

^{download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups}

Conclusion Scaring away novice users during the progress from the initial "novice" screen to the secondary "expert" screen is fine for your purposes, but beyond that it is not recommended.

Update on Jan 13 I just noticed that GitHub applied this concept in the repository settings page.

Answer 2

Yes, but I am not sure that execution works for me. You put up a signpost, easily ignored, at the front. Then they get in and will make a change and forget the sign.

I like the use of humor, but generally I use it closer to action that was dangerous.

Additionally, it shouldn't just be text. Find a way to make the user THINK. Too many errors happen because people don't read. Don't make it possible to do the action without comprehending the choice. I blogged about this particular modal.

Answer 3

In general, negative reinforcement like scaring users should be considered a bad idea. Theories on Advertisement and Product Design (outside of Halloween) have found using such tactics to usually backfire and is even cited from campaigns around WWI by advertising experts of the era like Claude Hopkins (cite: My Life in Advertising).

In my own experience, I have seen nothing but negative reactions from trying to scare users with complex, unfriendly names and even a splash of humor. In tests, I've seen users reiterate that they feel like the developer/designer is talking down to them and would rather be nurtured so they can become better at the product. An expert in a product tends to have more loyalty than a person not familiar with the product and thus, maintains to be a customer.

So, if you have expert features, I'd try to make those expert features as usable as possible. The names that you cite and how they have no meaning to a user unless they consult separate documentation is more of a restriction and barrier to nurturing your audience than helping them in any way. If you are truly concerned, hide the "expert" section in some configuration section that has a toggle of "turn on expert features" and provide a user friendly way of learning and using those expert features that maybe only 10-20% of your users actually care about. It's better to focus on the 80% than to try and scare them from NOT using a part of your product you're putting a lot of time into.

Answer 4

Serious warnings are OK but you should be careful to refrain from making them appear childish. If you're going to treat your users like toddlers, that will make them feel like they don't want to use your program at all.

At school we received a course on UI design recently with a couple of principles that should be maintained for a good user experience. One of these is that if you make the user feel dumb (for example by throwing a stack trace at them when you don't handle a fatal error, or blindly use something like messagebox(exception.message) everywhere), that is one of the main reasons for them to be scared off by your program. Throwing warnings at them in se is not, but if you make them appear like "you will not understand this, go away", it is. If you need to put a warning in your program, just tell the user that in case he doesn't understand what a setting does, that it is recommended to keep them at default.

Giving users choices is a good principle, but it's not if they don't understand the choice. Have a look at one stupid dialog

Answer 5

If you look at evidence from the Microsoft Windows vs Linux PC operating systems - A lot of "expert" settings in the Linux operating system are hidden away in shell commands (granted, recent builds have come a long way to incorporate friendly GUIs for common tasks).

In 2011, it was estimated that Linux had a total of less than 2% of the market share, compared to Microsoft's 92% (Market Share - Wikipedia).

Essentially, the operating systems are trying to do the same thing. You could attribute the disparity in use to the accessibility of advanced settings. Yes, there are many advanced settings in MS Windows that can only be changed via the registry, but many fewer when compared to Linux.

Of course, you could also attribute the disparity to a number of other factors. But I put it to you that the average Joe Public finds Linux scary and Windows not so. Hence in answer to your question - Scary UX is bad UX.

Answer 6

If anything, asking the user whether they want to perform dangerous action XXX, whether they are sure, whether they are sure about their being sure, ad absurdum is quite pointless. Glen Lipka's answer is a good idea, but some users won't really understand what the dialog wants, and will think that data is irreversibly geld in place, and begin harassing the developer to create confirmation boxes for ADDING data. Although if the user can't understand it, do we even trust them with the application?

Answer 7

It's not really scaring them. Its just a serious warning and we use them as part of interfaces in all sorts of household products. If you open the circuit breaker box, there had better be a serious warning that you may be close to touching enough electricity to kill you instantly. I think there are software situations that are analagous.