Should closing the dialog clear its fields?

Question

I identified as the most preferrable strategy for user not to lose their data implementation of confirmation/discard dialog when exiting original one.

I expect a few more form dialogs to emerge in the app though, for example editing of the profile.

Nielsen Norman Group's research supports the use of confirmation dialogs, but they also point out not to overuse them, so they do not lose significance (see https://www.nngroup.com/articles/confirmation-dialog/). I feel the same, I don't want to add Confirmation/Discard dialog everywhere. I believe if 'post' is going to be the most significant part of the application, it makes sense to put a confirmation/discard dialog there, but I feel less positive about putting it also on profile editing.

My question therefore is, assuming that we do not want to use confirmation/discard dialogs everywhere in the app, what's the preferred strategy for the rest of the forms/dialogs?

This is what I can't decide about:

1. User can close dialog accidentally, open it again, but realizing that they lost their editing and data - getting annoyed.
2. User can close the dialog as an act of discarding, but after a moment opening it again, expecting original data, but seeing the last uncommitted changes from the previous editing - getting confused.

What could be the ratio of these two scenarios occurring?

I noticed that most of the big web platforms do not preserve changes in their secondary (in terms of importance) dialogs. I wonder if it is based on a UX decision or if it makes just more sense in their scaled implementation.

For more context: Esc, Click on overlay/backdrop, and Close button (that I am yet to put everywhere) do close the dialogs.

Answer 1

I agree confirmation/discard dialog should not be overused. A good practise which I follow is to use such dialog in case of any loss of data. In your case I would suggest any action that closes the page with uncommitted changes should show the dialog box and discard should clear any changes made.

I would not recommend having uncommitted changed state since it will lead to unnecessary confusion as well as an overhead for the developers.

Answer 2

I far prefer encountering 2 to 1. StackExchange is a great example of work being saved when a New Post page is exited, and I am very grateful for it. I wish more sites adopted it, then I wouldn't have to deal with the frustratingly common situation of losing hours' worth of work to a session timeout or accidental quit.

I don't have research to support this, but I can't see anyone preferring their halfway-done work to be wiped. Confusion is far less of an issue than loss.

If you are very concerned about confusing users, you could banner "Last time, you quit before completing the form. We saved your work, but if you would like to reset all fields click [here]." Or to reduce text, "[clear]"

Answer 3

Yes, the X icon is commonly recognized by users to mean either to cancel or to close, but distinguishing between the two possibilities is critical for the success of the interaction.*

In your case it's better to avoid having this close button (X) in the corner.

To avoid losing users’ work, systems need to determine the user’s intent — cancel or close — and provide clear options.*

*_{https://www.nngroup.com/articles/cancel-vs-close/}

So that confirmation dialog sounds like a good idea, but it is only a solution to a problem that doesn't actually exist. You just have to place the cancel and save button next to each other. This way there is no extra step needed, all possible actions are clearly presented and there is no ambiguity: