Is it OK to phrase the title of a modal as a question?

Question

Modals are often used to force the user to make a decision, so they're basically questions. Is it ok to present the question in the title of the modal?

Something about it rubs me the wrong way.

This does not include rhetoric questions, such as "Leaving so soon?" on some quit confirmation dialogs.

EDIT: To clarify - the question refers to the title of the displayed text, not necessarily to the title bar of the modal. Updated mockup above.

Answer 1

My answer would be to synopsis the question of the modal form, so with the question being:

You are leaving the question with unsaved changes

The title would be:

"Unsaved Changes"

It's a pattern I've seen and used regularly, it's brief and informative.

Answer 2

Not according to Microsoft.

Use title-style capitalization, without ending punctuation.

Source: Microsoft Guidelines for Windows, section about error messages.

Answer 3

This area is normally giving you information on the type of question being asked (at least in my experience), so the question mark feels like the dialog is questioning itself.

I'm a "Save Changes" dialog... or am I?

Answer 4

You'll find that nearly without exception, question form in modals is little appropriate.

On content vs interaction

Probably to core duality in all interfaces is the that of content and interaction. Respectively, what you can see and what you can do.

Cognitively, these are mapped to (so to speak) two cognitive processes - interpretation and action, which on a lower level some will define as 'pattern matching' and 'statistical coherence'.

On a modal window, the text is part of the content (interpretation), while buttons serve as interaction (action) elements.

Users start with the buttons.

Modals are often a barrier in the user's wish to complete a task. As such users often seek for action elements first.

Because of this, the common recommendation is to turn this:

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Into that:

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But notice that while in the first example the buttons are logical answers to the question, the buttons in the second example are not. To the question "are you sure?" one should be offered "yes" or "no" options. Similarly, in your modal, "Discard changes", "Save changes" and "Stay on page" are not answers to the question "Save changes?".

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To the answers "keep customer" and "delete customer", one should ask:

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But this could make little sense - the user has just clicked 'delete' so why is the user being asked what she would like to do? The modal is not reflecting its nature as a guard.

Playing blackjack

Consider I play blackjack in a friendly casino. Now my cards add up to 20, and the dealer asks me:

• "Hit or stand".
• "Hit", I reply
• "Are you sure?", asks the dealer.

There are two options here:

• I know what I'm doing and understand why the question is being asked.
• I have no idea what the rules of the game are.

Similarly, a user faced with a delete-guard modal may or may not have intended to delete something. So either the user just wants to progress, or they need to know why the warning is given (that is, what are the rules of the game). The thing is, that question don't do great in explaining these things. So in the following dialog:

^{download bmml source}

importance is really bottom to top:

• Actions first
• Then reason
• Then question (arguably not needed at all).

So possibly, the ideal form is:

^{download bmml source}

Answer 5

Microsoft doesn't always have the correct answer, but they do set the standard. In this case, I think the question is lost if it's in the title bar. I would probably phrase the text like this:

Title: Save Progress Text: You have unsaved changes on this page. Would you like to save them now?

Answer 6

YES! It is but it has to fit the "design language".

We don't usually see punctuation in titles, that's a big graphical difference. Titles are also rarely full sentences.

So for a window I would say it's probably better not to do it. The thing is that modals don't need titlebars. They are not windows.

If you are able to make it work out graphically, in a way the user optically expects (according to the expected design language), it is definitely good to get to the point as soon as possible.

You should perhaps graphically merge the title into a sort of boldened introduction. You can also get away without a title at all. Or, surprise all of us. We love being pleasantly surprised :) (maybe just the answers in huge buttons?!)

Save changes? - You are leaving the page without saving your changes

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

( Sorry for the exceedingly cheesy text and the overall quality of kerning, alignment, line height, etc. It hurts me more than you, trust me. )