Straw poll

[simont]

My local printer at work, when you press the button on its control panel to cancel a queued print job, puts up a message box saying "This job will be cancelled. Continue?", with buttons marked "Continue" and "Exit".

[Poll #1527117]

Comments

[lnr]

I guess the printer has a different expectation? And you're right, it's not very clear whether than means "yes, continue cancelling" or "no, continue printing".

[simont]

Indeed, the printer thinks "continue" means "continue printing" (or, more usually, "continue futilely trying to print", since usually the reason I'm cancelling the job is because I accidentally submitted it in such a way that it wanted US Letter paper of which the printer contains none).

In particular, "Exit" seems like a really weird word to use in this context at all: nothing is exiting anything in the literal sense, and even the nonsensical usage of "exit" in UI context to mean "terminate a running application" doesn't apply in this case.

[lnr]

A simple "Cancel job? Yes/No" would be *much* clearer!

It's interesting that pretty much everyone seems to have the opposite interpretation to the printer though :) I had the same reaction as mooism below.

[simont]

A simple "Cancel job? Yes/No" would be *much* clearer!

... as long as the UI designer didn't fall into the trap of using that wording with three buttons labelled "Yes", "No" and "Cancel". (The admin interface on the self-checkouts in Tesco does that, or at least did last year.)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Indeed, they could go even further and label them something like "continue printing/cancel printing" and then you wouldn't have to read the whole thing. (Except that many printers have inadequate displays, so that _might_ be too long.)

[simont]

And yes, we're now at 20 votes for "Continue" and none for "Exit". I was fairly confident that people would generally vote against the printer, but wouldn't have bet on them doing so quite this unanimously!

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the internal software architecture is such that selecting the "exit" option causes some process to execute exit() or System.Exit() or whatever.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

I'd expect to have to choose the one I didn't choose...

[simont]

I did almost add a question to the poll along the lines of "Would you change your mind given that I posted this poll at all?" :-)

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

This is one of those Heisenburgy things where the observer affects the outcome, isn't it? *grins*

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

:) If the answer had seemed a lot more obvious, then probably, but with the actual options I really couldn't tell, so wouldn't have wanted to start second-guessing myself, which generally leads to me overthinking things anyway.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

If I was encountering those options in real life, I would expect to find myself choosing the cup the bean wasn't under...

[nunfetishist.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of one of the best pieces of UI advice in the old RISC OS Style Guide: do not have generic words in buttons or replies for dialogue boxes. In their style, the message would have been "Are you sure you wish to cancel the print job?" with buttons labelled "Cancel job" and "Continue with job".

[eponymousarchon.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's absolutely perfect. I'll remember that one - Thanks!

[ewx.livejournal.com]

[x] I would have no idea which to choose.

[simont]

Sorry about that. It occurred to me ten minutes after posting the poll that I forgot to put that option in.

(Perhaps there ought to be a mechanism in LJ for composing a post and having it automatically get posted half an hour later, except that you can edit it and/or change your mind before that happens. Then you'd have a chance for that just-too-late "oh, that's what I meant to include" moment not to be too late after all.)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

That's a good idea. I think some blog-publishing frameworks do that, or something similar (though often with a framework of days rather than hours). But it ought to be easy to add to the LJ system :)

I assumed it went without saying that most people had no idea, but would hesitantly guess that, if they were forced by circumstance to pick one or the other, the one they chose was marginally less unpalatable :)

But I guess maybe some people were more certain. Maybe polls should automatically come with the ability to indicate how certain you are about an answer if you want to :)

[mair_in_grenderich]

the error would still occur to you ten minutes after publication.

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

I need that box too.

I'd choose one option, make a note of which, and try it. It's very silly.

[gerald_duck]

Maybe they should just remove the confirmation dialogue entirely.

You press cancel deliberately then choose correctly: 1 non-essential button press
You press cancel deliberately then choose incorrectly: 3 non-essential button presses (because you go round again)
You press cancel by mistake then choose correctly: you save your print job
You press cancel by mistake then choose incorrectly: you lose your print job

Based on your poll, saving someone's print job from accidental cancellation seems an extremely unlikely outcome.

[simont]

Well, saving someone's print job from accidental cancellation the second time is not so improbable. One lost print job per user is at least not nearly as bad as one lost print job per print job :-)

[nunfetishist.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of something that vexes me wherever I see it: asking for confirmation to do something totally non-destructive and undoable.

[lionsphil.livejournal.com]

That is to condition you to hit "YES, DO IT ALREADY" without thinking when you get a prompt for something which is destructive and irreversable.

Moving files to the Recycle Bin vs. deleting them over network shares is an excellent example.

[gerald_duck]

Quite. Personally, I'll never vape a document before I have the satisfactory printout in my hands, anyway. Unless it's something utterly trivial like an address for a parcel, I won't vape it even then.

There's much more risk of the printer mangling my output or the job getting lost than of someone accidentally cancelling the job when they didn't mean to.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Or even better, say "cancelled, press XX to undo and continue printing" for a few seconds and then both "just do what I say" people and "agh, undo, UNDO!" people have something for them :)

[gerald_duck]

Or, better still — and many HP models do this — provide a "print it on whatever paper you've got" option.

[lunrwolf.livejournal.com]

Please give make/model details so I can avoid ever buying one of these :)

[simont]

It says "KONICA DP 85™ NETWORK PRINTING SYSTEM" on the front.

[gerald_duck]

They're claiming "85" as a trademark? I'd like to see that one stand up in court!

[deliberateblank.livejournal.com]

"The defense presents no evidence as we accidentally cancelled printing our brief."

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

I *think* I'd want Continue. But I'm not at all sure. The way the message is worded, I'd think that 'continue' meant 'continue to cancel the job', and 'exit' meant 'take me away from this printer dialogue box so I can think again about printing options, or leave me in the queue'. But I'm not sure. I'd dither.

[fanf]

[OK] [Cancel]

[deliberateblank.livejournal.com]

[Cancel] [Cancel]

[keirf.livejournal.com]

How about spelling checkers - you've written something that you're happy with, but the spell checker thinks it's wrong and is proposing a different word. What do you chose when you're presented with the following:

Correct? Y/N