A really good article on software usability

[Tim]

On Fri, 2007-01-05 at 10:18 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
> Does your refrigerator ask you every time you are nearby if you would
> like it to keep your food cool or not?  Instead of prompting every
> time for whether or not you'd like to save or lose all your work,
> why don't programs have a default for how many revisions you'd
> like it to keep and always save all changes unless explicitly told
> to exit without saving?

Too much like that disastrous re-arrange your mess of the start menu on
Windows (which wouldn't be needed if the thing was organised, in the
first place).

Users find, after a little while, that it's changed on them.  That's
disconcerting, in itself.  They also have to go around hunting for
things used occasinally, instead of just being able to find it.

> If it ends up saving work you wanted to throw away, then you'd have an
> after-the-fact way to fix the unusual case instead of being bothered
> every time selecting the obvious choice.

That's not *too* bad, but the opposite is unacceptable.