Re: Comments on dialog proposal

[Seth Nickell <snickell stanford edu>]

On 05 Sep 2001 13:05:04 -0700, Adam Elman wrote:
> At 7:55 PM +0100 9/5/01, Michael Rogers wrote:
> >Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> >>  I really think "OK" ought to be reserved for cases where the button
> >>  actually does something in addition to closing the dialog.
> >
> >Fair enough. But 'Close' is uninformative. How about something that
> >indicates that you accept the current settings, eg 'Accept' or 'Done'?
> 
> Again, "Accept" implies that the settings are not actually set until 
> the button is clicked, which is wrong.
> 
> "Done" is less of a problem, but I return to my original objection to 
> "Done" by noting that it has absolutely no information about what's 
> going to happen when the button is clicked.  "Close" is a specific 
> verb which indicates a specific action: closing the window.  I think 
> that's probably why Apple picked it, although I don't know that for 
> certain.
> 
> I don't see why Close is any more confusing than "OK" or "Accept" or 
> "Done", really.

my concern is only in the short term as users become acquainted with
instant apply. "Close" sounds like there's a chance that your changes
could be lost. "Close" sounds potentially destructive. When I hear
close, I hear the words "You didn't close my program did you?!?" in my
mother's voice, implying that her changes were lost. That's the only
reason I shy away from Close.

"Done" to me implies that the changes will be preserved. At the very
least it doesn't seem dangerous, and it seems *pretty* clear to me that
it will dismiss the window. Ultimately I think this issue needs to be
resolved by some small scale tests on people.

Good questions that address the heart of this issue might be:

"What do you think will happen when you click on Close?"

"What do you think will happen when you click on Done?"

Perhaps the concerns on both sides are invalid, in which case I'm
inclined to go with "Close" (as I prefer the verb form in the absence of
better reasons).

-Seth