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I am building an application that allows a user to

  • Add a task
  • Review a task
  • Delete a task

It is common to add an additional confirmation step for "Delete a task" as this step is not reversible.

I am thinking if it is a good practice to add a confirmation step when a use chooses to Review a task. E.G. after a user clicks "Review", a window pops out and asks if you really want to review it. Although "Review a task" does not make a task to disappear but it indeed change the state of a task permanently.

2 Answers 2

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"Review task" in your case is not the same as approving the content being reviewed I suppose. Intention to make an edit on the content should not be a thing choosen on the first stage. Even if you choose "Review Task" option, you may not finish your edit/review and you may still want to work on it for a while.

Hence then, approving this review/edit may require an additional confirmation and you're free (and right I suppose) to ask your users grant their wishes to proceed.

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Generally, you only provide a confirmation step if the result of continuing is: undoable, or requires effort (time/resources) to undo.

Asking for confirmation has two big downsides - it interrupts user flows and brings great risk of habitually clicking yes to confirm. This is why it should be reserved for actions that require careful attention. Don't ask for confirmation on routine tasks.

You mentioned reviewing a task does not delete the task if a user doesn't complete the process. This means it's not a critical action and you should therefore stay away from confirmations. You'll only train users to click 'yes' as fast as possible to continue their flow. Therefore, once users will at some point want to do something more impactful - such as deleting - that habit of clicking yes will harm them.

Instead of adding a confirmation, consider other ways to make users aware of risk:

  • Separate truly dangerous actions (deleting) from the safe ones (adding/reviewing) with white space and color differentiation. Essentially, make sure it's not possible to misclick by accident with ample spacing.
  • Reviewing (I guess editing?) can be followed up with a preview confirmation once a user wants to submit changes. Especially if it takes time to undo the action. This way a user can see the changes that will be made and snap them out of that habit to click 'yes' as soon as a pop-up shows up. It's a bit of a failsafe in a sense.

More here about the use of confirmation screens.

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