Hot answers tagged dialog
58
When a user is about to take an action that may not be easily reversible, it is imperative that the interface give them enough information to:
Make the correct decision on what they want to do.
Make it very clear how to make that happen.
In Windows 7 the "Copy File" dialog gives you plenty of information to help you compare the two files using meta ...
48
While Charles's Answer shows some great UIs, I wanted to add the UX that Directory Opus uses for the same action, which I find very good as well. Simple on the surface with advanced options tucked away after a click.
.
Clicking on the Dropdowns results in these options:
As you can see it also provides shortcuts for the advanced operations making it ...
24
If we ask UX-guru Jakob Nielsen it's 10 seconds. Longer waiting times could get the user to leave the program/page and do other stuff in the meantime. Supposing that something has gone wrong also depends on the users anticipation on how long a certain task could possibly take and the kind of task itself.
Original (1993): ...
15
That is one of the best examples of an interface designed by engineers for engineers :)
I would suggest the following improvements:
Some of the options should be moved to an advanced section, which is selectable for people that know that they want advanced features.
Related options could be grouped together to make it easier to scan.
The buttons should ...
9
They are distinct:
OK: Applies the changes and closes the dialog (or goes back to the previous location / one level up)
Apply: Applies the changes so the user can see / work with the results, but keeps the dialog open, ready for further modifications
Cancel: closes the dialog without applying any changes.
The "Close button" in the window title usually acts ...
8
If you expect it to take a lot of time, instead of just a spinning circle you could add progress indicator. Progress indicators are almost perfect from the users perspective, they have just one weak side - they should reflect the TIME spent on waiting, and not DATA PROCESSED, but from programming point of view there are too many dependencies to say that a ...
8
I think FileZilla does a good job of this. And they give you options to never ask again when overwriting - either in the current queue of transfers ('apply to current queue only'), or for the entire FTP session (just 'always use this action' selected).
If they were to add any more options though, I reckon a drop down list would be in order for the 'action' ...
7
It seems like you have a relatively simple problem in terms of what you want to ask your users, so why not ask it explicitly with four options (where I would emphasise the safest option for each).
So Import and Append and Export and Append would be the most common options I presume. The other options can either be de-emphasised text, another button.
So ...
7
Users are often more interested to know How do I go about to achieve this goal that I have, rather than investigating the purpose for random actions and CTA's that they currently see in the application.
The reason it was removed was simply that it was found more efficient and helpful to focus on finding "good" solutions for letting a user search the answer ...
7
I would keep it as a simple message along the lines of the Android writing style guidelines (even if it isn't for mobile):
Download for 1 credit?
Download | Cancel
It's short, to the point, and avoids words with negative connotations.
6
Microsoft still supports context help, and there is no real reason not to use context help. The article Designing Context-Sensitive Help (Windows) from april 2012 shows that this is still valid:
You can create context-sensitive help for many of your program's interface elements. In dialog boxes, users can display help by clicking the question mark in the ...
6
I think the answer to whether the destructive "delete" should be the default action or not highly depends on the context in which the dialog occurs. If the dialog was the result of an action that expresses a clear destructive intent, like for example clicking "empty trash", the user probably knows what the consequences are, so it makes most sense to have the ...
5
Microsoft conducted a lot of testing into the User Account Control (UAC) between Windows Vista (when it was introduced) and Windows 7. They have a post about this on their msdn blogs:
We have learned from our customers participating in the Customer Experience Improvement Program, Windows Feedback Panel, user surveys, user in field testing, and in house ...
5
Dialog boxes are needed. In the old HCI thinking, a user interface is essentially a dialog between a human, and a computer.
However, handling of the dialog boxes can become habitual. The typical example is Word or any similar document editor: when you close an unsaved document, usually, you don't want to save it. In those exceptional times when you actually ...
4
I lot depends on what the person is waiting for.
I can't recall where I read it, but for airline flight bookings it was found that a short wait had a worse response than a longer one. If it were longer (and showed some fake activity), the customers had a better confidence in the algorithm and results. The same applies for insurance quotes and similar ...
4
One big issue here is a lack of hierarchy, all of the buttons are given equal weight on one wide line, which ends up being overpowering at first glance. The user wastes mental energy scanning all available actions because he/she assumes that all choices are equally important.
I believe this dialog box should be customized, with obviously the 2 big buttons ...
4
I'm author of WinSCP and I've found this "question" really inspiring. Thanks. This is my (kind of) "answer".
Improvements I've done (see also screenshot below):
Inspired by @Vijay's answer (and Directory Opus), I have merged similar buttons into one with drop down menu. So now there are only 4 buttons, Yes (with Newer Only and Yes to All in menu), No ...
3
The main reason for the Apply feature is to yield closure in the user. What I mean by that is that you don't want to complicate a task for a user, making the user having to think too much about the mere interactive pattern of an application but rather the main task at hand. In this case it's really to ensure the user that changes the user makes are being ...
3
If you have a full screen information dialog (or even a full screen dialog with more than information e.g. settings), you could place a "Back" button at the button instead of an "OK" button, since "OK" is more common for smaller pop-ups.
("OK" makes me think, "OK" I have read this, close this window. However, if the windows is full screen, I can't tell if ...
3
Wait time is closely related to perceived performance. Steve Seow has an excellent book titled Designing and Engineering Time: The Psychology of Time Perception in Software.
One of its major results is how we perceive response time:
"instantaneous" (0.1 – 0.2 seconds)
"immediate" (0.5 – 1 second)
"longer" (2-5 seconds or more)
How long they're willing ...
3
It is possible and used heavily in SharePoint. But SharePoint is a poor reference for User Experience, and my personal experience is to minimize the use of scrolling in lightboxes. Often you have a vertical scroll at the right side of the browser and a second scroll inside the lightbox. That is never good, since the user get confused where they are currently ...
3
I would recommend going with the cancel option since most users might not be used to the concept of using the close icon (the X) to close a dialog in a mobile app (you have them in websites) but then with a mobile app the common affordance to what I have found is to to have a distinct cancel option as shown below:
3
For the most part I would go with a dedicated 'Cancel' labelled button rather than an 'x' on mobile.
The target area is generally to small for the user to have a fluid interaction. If you make the 'x' a bigger target area it can be used. A good size might be the one used for delete options(red -). It seems to work quite well for apple so far.
Not exactly ...
2
Though the term "dialog box" conjures ideas similar to the one that Wikipedia shows here:
...the definition of Dialog is rather broad and applies to most of human-computer interaction. Pretty much everything is a dialog; the user gives input and the computer gives feedback. You click the big red button and the computer says it's shutting down. So you ...
2
I am a little confused here, so taking your example above can white be the only color on black or can I specify the text to be any color on the black background (assuming I want to use the black background). If you want to provide your users flexibility to do that,then try something like this
Edit: As sysscore, suggested you could just also put in a color ...
2
Yes, there is extensive research on this question available in the literature on usable security, and they have found that users do indeed become jaded. This is an important challenge for making security usable: sometimes developers think, if in doubt, just throw in another warning dialog; but the research literature shows that this is a bad idea.
...
2
It will be good to have meaningful controls for either solutions. Nobody likes to read documentation and even if the users learn the meaning but don't use the app everyday they may forget the meaning quickly. It's a bit hard to answer your questions without much context. How many actions and alternatives do you have? How is your system represented to users? ...
2
I believe the OK-Apply policy comes from a time where forms with multiple tabs (or similar) couldn't retain the changes between tab switches. Thus the apply had the advantage of allowing the user to apply a subset of the changes that they intended to do.
Definitely not supporting OK-Apply approach, but I must admit, the apply has helped me cautiously save ...
2
Firstly, you should never use OK when you could use a verb instead. The meaning of OK is too easy to misinterpret, it's much better to use a descriptive button name so users understand what action they're undertaking. The only time I think an OK button is acceptable is in a purely informational dialog.
Why a Close when there's a Cancel?
The redundancy ...
2
I'd say don't surprise users - saving few pixels here and there will be less useful then providing your users with clear action point and focus point of the current screen. Also, chances are that other apps will follow well established guidelines and patterns one of which certainly is to have OK or other buttons.
Think about it like this as well - user ...
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