Part Three: The details · Asking and deciding
Asking "are you sure?" feels like protection. Asked about everything, people stop reading the question.
A confirmation box is the cheapest safety feature there is. One afternoon, and the team can say they warned people. So it spreads. Are you sure you want to close this? Remove this tag? Leave this page? Log out?
People answer the first few. After that their hand learns the motion: click, then click the button on the right. The box no longer makes anyone think, because there was almost never anything to think about. Then one day the action deletes a year of records, and the same box gets the same reflex. The warning was real that time, and it looked like all the others.
So a confirmation has a budget. Each one spent on something trivial weakens the one that matters.
The Trash on a Mac shows where the question belongs. Dragging a file there asks nothing, because the file can be dragged back out. The question comes only when you empty the Trash, which is the step that cannot be reversed. Whatever can be made reversible should be, and then it needs no question at all.
That leaves a short list: deleting an account, sending money, emailing ten thousand customers. These cannot be taken back and would hurt. Give each a stop that looks unlike an ordinary dialog. Say exactly what will be lost, with the real numbers. Name the action on the button. For the gravest, ask the person to type the name of the thing they are about to destroy.
Are you sure?
This action cannot be undone.
Cancel OKDelete the Riverside Clinic account?
412 appointments and 3 staff logins will be deleted for good.
Keep account Delete 412 appointmentsTherefore:
Save confirmation for the few actions that cannot be undone and would do real harm. Make those stops rare, specific about what will be lost, and unlike any ordinary dialog.
In practice. List every "are you sure?" in the product. Mark each action as reversible or not. Remove the question from the reversible ones. For the rest, rewrite it to say what will be lost and how much.
Goes with. Making actions reversible in the first place is UNDO ALMOST EVERYTHING (54). The stops that remain should SAY WHAT HAPPENS NEXT (81), with buttons that follow BUTTONS SAY WHAT THEY DO (80).
Example: the Trash in macOS.