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I often make the misstake of accidentally checking the "don't show this message again" checkbox when using tab and spacebar to navigate. Since I'm asking to never see the message again, undoing that action is usually hard. Sometimes, it's hidden away under settings somewhere, and sometimes it's nowhere to be found.

What's a good way to allow users to undo "don't show this again" actions?

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    If you already have a menu called preferences, that'll be the place.
    – Stephan Bijzitter
    Commented Jan 16, 2016 at 22:17

2 Answers 2

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A tenet of good user experience in software is system feedback. In this instance, the system should confirm it will no longer show you notifications... which is a good place to offer an undo option, as well as tell them where they can change their preferences.

For example:

UI/UX Example Image

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    I like this answer and love the UI of the popups, but am I the only one that finds it ironic that a popup tip appears to tell you that you chose to see no more popup tips?
    – DasBeasto
    Commented Jan 19, 2016 at 21:21
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    Personally, I find this solution doesn't work at all. You're showing this information once at a time that I don't care about it (obviously I'm disabling the warning because I don't think I need it again). Months later, when I want to reverse that decision, there's very little chance I'll remember what that message said.
    – Steve Bennett
    Commented Jan 20, 2016 at 0:42
  • In my opinion, it would be better to add the hint text immediately in the first modal, because the user has no idea where to retrieve the tips if he's gonna click 'don't show me tips anymore'. Only afterwards will he know, but he doesn't know that he'll know ;)
    – continuous
    Commented Apr 25, 2023 at 13:41
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Another way, depending on the message type, could be to replace "Don't show this message again" by "Don't stop on this <whatever> any more", which is in fact what the user wants.
Then, the user could be notified (for example by stacking the messages in a notifications area) but the action wouldn't be halted but for a short while (like 700ms) in order to allow the user to react when needed.
A [stop] button would show in the communications area for the user to regain control whenever he sees fit.

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    I'm having trouble understanding your example. Could you please try to explain a bit more?
    – Drathier
    Commented Jan 19, 2016 at 20:56
  • I think he's suggesting replacing a modal message with a non-modal in a notification pane.
    – Steve Bennett
    Commented Jan 20, 2016 at 0:43
  • Steve is right. There are occasions when the user will not want to be stopped by a repeating modal message, but might anyway want to see daid messages. The suggestion is, after the user opted not to be stopped each time, to stack said messages in a notification pane. IMO this pane might have a [stop] button for the user to recover control when needed.
    – Juan Lanus
    Commented Jan 21, 2016 at 0:22
  • Funny thing is, then we need the same thing for the notifications, because that small red badge drives me crazy, so I have to mark them as read, even the ones i didn't want to see
    – Drathier
    Commented Jan 21, 2016 at 6:02

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