Hiding and Disabling Menu Items
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Re: Hiding and Disabling Menu Items
by Chauncey Wilson
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Yes, error prevention is a primary goal, but I will play devil's
advocate here and modify that to state, prevent errors whenever possible, but if you can't prevent the error (because of system or code limitations or something else that can't be changed immediately), present a well-crafted message that explains how to prevent the error the next time. Error messages may not be the best teaching method, but one of the goals of a good error or informational message is to instruct and prevent the next error. One of the interesting aspects of our field is that the guidelines for effective error messages have been around since the late 1980s but many systems still ignore the basic pattern for good error messages. One thought about error messages is that if they are sufficient, a person may not have to call internal or external support or search a knowledge base for a problem so a good message can be cost-effective (though prevention is still better). Chauncey On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 7:26 AM, Elizabeth Buie <ebuie@...> wrote: > Dan Saffer wrote: > >>I guess I'm questioning whether error messages are the correct way to >>"teach" users anything. > > Are you really questioning, Dan, or are you being polite and giving them the benefit > of the doubt? :-) > > Me, I would state it outright: Error messages are *not* the correct way to teach them. > > Does anyone remember the long-established principle that "Error prevention is > better than error recovery"? (Chauncey, you can put your hand down; I know you do. :-) > > Elizabeth > > -- > Elizabeth Buie > Luminanze Consulting, LLC > www.luminanze.com > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... discuss@... > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Re: Hiding and Disabling Menu Items
by Jared Spool
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On Jul 3, 2008, at 7:26 AM, Elizabeth Buie wrote: > Me, I would state it outright: Error messages are *not* the correct > way to teach them. Yes, but nothing says "Don't press that button" better than a couple of electrodes emitting 10,000 volts. They won't make the mistake again, I tell you. ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Re: Hiding and Disabling Menu Items
by Chauncey Wilson
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Let see, the usability ethics code restricts electric shock features
to less than 270 volts and remember that amperage is the more critical voltage. Chauncey On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 9:30 AM, Jared Spool <jspool@...> wrote: > > On Jul 3, 2008, at 7:26 AM, Elizabeth Buie wrote: > >> Me, I would state it outright: Error messages are *not* the correct way >> to teach them. > > Yes, but nothing says "Don't press that button" better than a couple of > electrodes emitting 10,000 volts. They won't make the mistake again, I tell > you. > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... discuss@... > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Re: Hiding and Disabling Menu Items
by Jared Spool
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On Jul 3, 2008, at 9:51 AM, Chauncey Wilson wrote: > Let see, the usability ethics code restricts electric shock features > to less than 270 volts and remember that amperage is the more critical > voltage. Fortunately, the current administration has made the need for ethics obsolete. It's no longer a concern. ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Re: Hiding and Disabling Menu Items
by Will Evans-3
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My 2 cents - the people who chose to not only users to do something that is
not allowed by the system, but further codified this little turdblossum (I wonder how much user testing was involved validating this design decision) need electroshock. There are many ways to solve whatever problem space they think they might have had. On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 9:58 AM, Jared Spool <jspool@...> wrote: > > On Jul 3, 2008, at 9:51 AM, Chauncey Wilson wrote: > > Let see, the usability ethics code restricts electric shock features >> to less than 270 volts and remember that amperage is the more critical >> voltage. >> > > Fortunately, the current administration has made the need for ethics > obsolete. It's no longer a concern. > > > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling Menu Items)
by Dan Saffer
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In fact, based on this conversation, I'm going to toss out one other
possible best practice: The system should never present an error message to a user unless the user has done everything right but the system itself cannot respond correctly. Users should otherwise never be allowed to make "errors." (Flickr, for instance, does this very well.) Dan ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Re: Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling Menu Items)
by Scott Berkun-2
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Way back when during my days at Microsoft, I worked on an OS project that
had the goal of eliminating all error messages in much the way you suggested. We found that in simple, webish, apps, this was easier to manage than say, Excel or Word. In complex apps the amount of data entry or scripting like functionality made it prohibitively expensive to handle all the error cases well (or to eliminate the many gratutious error messages). Flickr is a great example - there's a tiny amount of user data entry, and flickr does very little with it - it's all meta data. Try to do the same with Quickbooks, Filemaker, or even an E-mail program and it's much harder to pull off given the # of non-trivial error cases. Not impossible, but more dev work intensive than you'd think. Error messages are popular simply because they are the cheapest interaction a programmer has - it's much less work to handle users with errors than it is to write code that gracefully resolves issues on its own. So like in many cases, the question isn't as much about what the superior design is, it's finding a way to make that superior design affordable to build. -Scott ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Saffer" <dan@...> To: "IxDA Discuss" <discuss@...> Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 7:23 AM Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling Menu Items) > In fact, based on this conversation, I'm going to toss out one other > possible best practice: > > The system should never present an error message to a user unless the > user has done everything right but the system itself cannot respond > correctly. Users should otherwise never be allowed to make "errors." > > (Flickr, for instance, does this very well.) > > Dan > > > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... discuss@... > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Re: Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling Menu Items)
by Robert Hoekman Jr
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>
> The system should never present an error message to a user unless the user > has done everything right but the system itself cannot respond correctly. > Users should otherwise never be allowed to make "errors." > I second that. In fact, I preach it often. -r- ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Re: Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling Menu Items)
by Robert Hoekman Jr
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>
> We found that in simple, webish, apps, this was easier to manage than say, > Excel or Word. In complex apps the amount of data entry or scripting like > functionality made it prohibitively expensive to handle all the error cases > well (or to eliminate the many gratutious error messages). The hard part, I'm sure, is that removing errors means altering the task flows that lead to them. In something as robust as Excel, that would be no small feat. But wow, it would be so worth it! -r- ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Re: Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling Menu Items)
by Dan Saffer
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On Jul 3, 2008, at 9:55 AM, Scott Berkun wrote: > Error messages are popular simply because they are the cheapest > interaction a programmer has - it's much less work to handle users > with errors than it is to write code that gracefully resolves issues > on its own. > > So like in many cases, the question isn't as much about what the > superior design is, it's finding a way to make that superior design > affordable to build. Clearly, this is a non-trivial task and more often than not a goal to strive for in the hope of minimizing error messages. I will say that this isn't only just an expedient method for developers--I can tell when I'm getting lazy in my thinking when the best I can offer is a pop-up error message. It can be an easy trap for designers to fall into as well. Dan ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Re: Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling MenuItems)
by Scott Berkun-2
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Yes - I'd go even further and blame development tools. Here's a theory:
1. The design of development tools is indifferent to the making of good UI. 2. Programmers are efficient (or lazy :) Therefore 3. Programmers will tend to make bad UI... until development tools make it almost as easy to make good UI as it is to make lazy UI. A development tool that makes it easy to follow basic UI guidelines is 20 times more valuable than any book on UI design. Instead of blaming programmers, it'd be better to aim at the programmers who make tools for programmers. -Scott Scott Berkun www.scottberkun.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Saffer" <dan@...> To: "IxDA Discuss" <discuss@...> Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 8:59 AM Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling MenuItems) > I will say that this isn't only just an expedient method for > developers--I can tell when I'm getting lazy in my thinking when the best > I can offer is a pop-up error message. It can be an easy trap for > designers to fall into as well. ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Need an Image: Copier Internal with Troubleshooting Guides
by Gretchen Anderson-2
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Random question:
I'm looking for a good photo of the internals of a copier with the 1,2,3 and color coded handles for clearing a paper jam. It's proving harder than you'd think to get a good one. Anyone got a good source? ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Re: Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling MenuItems)
by Mitchell Joe
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>> The system should never present an error message to a user unless the
user >> has done everything right but the system itself cannot respond correctly. >> Users should otherwise never be allowed to make "errors." >> > >I second that. In fact, I preach it often. > Okay, so what about this situation:You come to a screen to pay your bills and there are empty fields to enter in different dollar amounts and a "Make Payments" button. The user might make the error of pressing the button without entering any dollar amounts. I think it's fair to call this an error. One way to prevent this would be to disable the button and give it that grayed out visual treatment until they enter a dollar amount but that would mean that when they arrive at the page they'll see a "broken" button. Will they realize that it's because they haven't entered any payment amounts yet or will they see the grayed out button and think, "Why can't I make payments?" I think I'd lean towards showing an enabled button and then giving a "You did not enter a dollar amount." error message if they pressed it. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Mitch On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 11:18 AM, Scott Berkun <info@...> wrote: > Yes - I'd go even further and blame development tools. Here's a theory: > > 1. The design of development tools is indifferent to the making of good UI. > 2. Programmers are efficient (or lazy :) > > Therefore > > 3. Programmers will tend to make bad UI... until development tools make it > almost as easy to make good UI as it is to make lazy UI. > > A development tool that makes it easy to follow basic UI guidelines is 20 > times more valuable than any book on UI design. Instead of blaming > programmers, it'd be better to aim at the programmers who make tools for > programmers. > > -Scott > > Scott Berkun > www.scottberkun.com > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Saffer" <dan@...> > To: "IxDA Discuss" <discuss@...> > Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 8:59 AM > Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling > MenuItems) > > > I will say that this isn't only just an expedient method for developers--I >> can tell when I'm getting lazy in my thinking when the best I can offer is >> a pop-up error message. It can be an easy trap for designers to fall into as >> well. >> > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... discuss@... > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Re: Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling MenuItems)
by Filipe Levi
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I had this problem yesterday with Google Video Uploader. The login window
has a 'Submit' button which stays disabled till the user types the first digit of his/her password (I had asked it to remember my username). It looked strange and took me an unnecessary effort to realize it was not broken! The point is: I'd never click the 'Submit' button with the password field empty. Similarly, I'd rarely click Mitchell's 'Make payments' button with the amounts fields empty because *I'd be there to pay the amounts*. I wouldn't eliminate the probability of an error to occur, but the task tells a lot about it. Regards, *Filipe Levi* User researcher at CESAR UXnet ambassador in Brazil +55 81 99240791 | mobile +55 81 31345131 | office filipelevi.com On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 3:48 PM, Mitchell Joe <mitch@...> wrote: > >> The system should never present an error message to a user unless the > user > >> has done everything right but the system itself cannot respond > correctly. > >> Users should otherwise never be allowed to make "errors." > >> > > > >I second that. In fact, I preach it often. > > > > Okay, so what about this situation:You come to a screen to pay your bills > and there are empty fields to enter in different dollar amounts and a "Make > Payments" button. The user might make the error of pressing the button > without entering any dollar amounts. I think it's fair to call this an > error. One way to prevent this would be to disable the button and give it > that grayed out visual treatment until they enter a dollar amount but that > would mean that when they arrive at the page they'll see a "broken" button. > Will they realize that it's because they haven't entered any payment > amounts > yet or will they see the grayed out button and think, "Why can't I make > payments?" I think I'd lean towards showing an enabled button and then > giving a "You did not enter a dollar amount." error message if they pressed > it. I'd love to hear your thoughts. > > Mitch > > > On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 11:18 AM, Scott Berkun <info@...> > wrote: > > > Yes - I'd go even further and blame development tools. Here's a theory: > > > > 1. The design of development tools is indifferent to the making of good > UI. > > 2. Programmers are efficient (or lazy :) > > > > Therefore > > > > 3. Programmers will tend to make bad UI... until development tools make > it > > almost as easy to make good UI as it is to make lazy UI. > > > > A development tool that makes it easy to follow basic UI guidelines is 20 > > times more valuable than any book on UI design. Instead of blaming > > programmers, it'd be better to aim at the programmers who make tools for > > programmers. > > > > -Scott > > > > Scott Berkun > > www.scottberkun.com > > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Saffer" <dan@...> > > To: "IxDA Discuss" <discuss@...> > > Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 8:59 AM > > Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling > > MenuItems) > > > > > > I will say that this isn't only just an expedient method for > developers--I > >> can tell when I'm getting lazy in my thinking when the best I can offer > is > >> a pop-up error message. It can be an easy trap for designers to fall > into as > >> well. > >> > > > > ________________________________________________________________ > > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > > To post to this list ....... discuss@... > > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... discuss@... > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Re: Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling MenuItems)
by Robert Hoekman Jr
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> One way to prevent this would be to disable the button and give it > that grayed out visual treatment until they enter a dollar amount but that > would mean that when they arrive at the page they'll see a "broken" button. Agreed, assuming most people actually look at the button prior to completing the form. I think I'd lean towards showing an enabled button and then > giving a "You did not enter a dollar amount." error message if they pressed > it. I'd love to hear your thoughts. > Definitely—inline validation, prior to to the button click, is ideal. Not easy to code, but ideal. And of course, the messages should tell users how to do things correctly rather than just accusing them of doing something wrong (e.e. "Your email must be in the form 'me@...'"). -r- ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Re: Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling Menu Items)
by Paul Eisen
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There's another way to approach this, that I think at least conceptually can help the designer make the right choices. We should all eradicate the word "error" from our design vocabularies.
I propose that the user NEVER makes errors. The user may do unexpected things, or provide unexpected input, or act in ways that the system is not sophisticated enough to deal with. Or that the sponsor of the system chooses not to deal with. But no error has occurred. Even a slip, where the user acts in a way contrary to their own intention, can be anticipated. I personally think we should always avoid the word error in our artifacts. Most certainly in the UI. But even in our internal documentation and discussions. Calling these incidents "unexpected events" instead of "errors" leads to a totally different mind-set about how to deal with them. To begin: Let's start examining our expectations. Paul Eisen Principal User Experience Architect tandemseven -----Original Message----- From: Dan Saffer <snip> The system should never present an error message to a user unless the user has done everything right but the system itself cannot respond correctly. Users should otherwise never be allowed to make "errors." <snip> ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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Re: Error Messages (Was: Hiding and Disabling MenuItems)
by seasoup
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Inline validation is the best way to go, but the user could still not enter
anything and see that the form is "disabled" and wonder why. but that is a better trade off then having a button they can press which doesn't work. better to prevent errors then allow them and then message about them later. If really concerned, you could put a message next to the submit button stating that the form must be filled out to enable the button. On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 12:46 PM, Robert Hoekman Jr <robert@...> wrote: > > > > One way to prevent this would be to disable the button and give it > > that grayed out visual treatment until they enter a dollar amount but > that > > would mean that when they arrive at the page they'll see a "broken" > button. > > > Agreed, assuming most people actually look at the button prior to > completing > the form. > > I think I'd lean towards showing an enabled button and then > > giving a "You did not enter a dollar amount." error message if they > pressed > > it. I'd love to hear your thoughts. > > > > Definitely—inline validation, prior to to the button click, is ideal. Not > easy to code, but ideal. And of course, the messages should tell users how > to do things correctly rather than just accusing them of doing something > wrong (e.e. "Your email must be in the form 'me@...'"). > > -r- > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... discuss@... > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... discuss@... Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help |
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