slightly OT: preventing user stupidity

[Joe Chasan]

meaningless rant of the day:  how far do you go to prevent user stupidity?

program:  Q.  Do you wish to post now? (Y/N)
user: Y

program: Q. Are you SURE you wish to post? (Y/N)
user: Y

program:  Q. Are you REALLY REALLY REALLY SURE you want to post now? (Y/N)
user: Y

user:  SH*T.  i didn't want to post.  time to call the consultant to drop
everything and unpost the 63 places that get affected by my careless 
posting of data that was certainly not my fault that was posted in error.


what to do?  obviously, the more questions you ask the more the user
just answers by rote without thinking.  its not always appropriate or
helpful to the end-user to have a corresponding unpost/undo routine.

i've thought of;
a) mixing up yes/no answers so that they can't press "yes" all the time

(e.g. do you want to post? / enter Y to cancel post, N otherwise...)

b) forcing type out of word "Yes" or "Agree" instead of Y or N

c) creating a random character sequence each time and ask user to
type in to confirm post.

draconion?  what have other people tried that would not make them the
one least likeley to be invited to christmas party?

--- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---
-Joe Chasan-                      Magnatech Business Systems, Inc.
joe at magnatechonline.com           Hicksville, NY - USA
http://www.MagnatechOnline.com    Tel.(516) 931-4444/Fax.(516) 931-1264