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This is the message Sharepoint 2010 gives as a confirmation message for requesting access to a particular site you do not have access to.
I am quite confused by the icon - to me this looks like a "failed" icon - what UX reasons are there this icon would be used in this situation?
That is a horrible confirmation message.
The close / clear icon being used in a way that makes very little sense, and is inconsistent with the same symbol on the top right.
Additionally, labelling the message as "Confirmation" is redundant and adds no more useful information to the person reading it. It is also lacking any information letting the person know what they can expect or should do.
It should be something more like this rough mockup:
SharePoint is a Microsoft product. The X icon is Microsoft's standard error icon.
Most likely, the confirmation message was preceded by a message saying something like 'access denied' along with a link for requesting access.
The icon for the 'access denied' message is the error icon. The reasons for this are in their UX guidelines.
Requesting access leads to the confirmation page above.
All of this takes place in the same page. It appears they forgot to replace the icon when they replaced the message text. Using their guidelines, the Information icon would be the correct icon to accompany the confirmation message.
One valid reason that I could think of to show a red X icon and confirmation together would be if you didn't have access to that particular feature/document/whatever in SharePoint (hence, red X), but if it automatically submitted a request to the SharePoint site owner for you to get access to that particular feature/document/whatever (hence, confirmation).
It's clear that this dialog needs some work, since it's presenting you with contradictory information. If my guess is correct, then the dialog needs to explain why you weren't able to complete the task that you wanted to do. It's nice of them to try to address the issue by automatically submitting the request, but that shouldn't show up as a confirmation. If this were the case, one better way to convey this to the user could be the following:
You are unable to access document.docx. Your request to access document.docx has been forwarded to the owner of this SharePoint, [email protected].
This tells you the reason for the failure, what was automatically done about it, and even tells you who the owner of the SharePoint site is so that you can contact them yourself if needed to explain why you need access to that document.
That icon is mixing metaphors, confirming something with an error icon. I agree with you. A better option would be a checkmark perhaps. Such as this one:
Use icons consistently that reflect the type of interaction so the user isn't confused!
