Monday, June 25, 2007

Quick: All actions should have 'undo'

I just slipped and added a misspelled word to the Firefox dictionary. Guess what the process is for undoing that mistake?

Some apps "fix" this problem by prompting with an "are you sure" type dialog before performing the action. That's very annoying, and it doesn't always work since I might hit space or enter or something and accidentally "ok" it. (this happens to me a lot when the dialog pops up while I'm typing)

I really like the solution used in Gmail:


After an action is performed, state what the action was and give an opportunity to undo, but in a non-intrusive way. More people should copy this approach, including Gmail, which needs it on "Send" (this will require adding a short delivery delay, like 10 sec, but it's worth it).

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