slightly OT: preventing user stupidity

[Kenneth Brody]

Joe Chasan wrote:
> 
> 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?

Those are the solutions I came up with off the top of my head.  The only
difference would be to change (a) to have a different Y/N sequence needed
each time.  (As opposed to always the same sequence, which they will then
learn to type without thinking about.)


Howie told me about something he did many years ago.  Upon system boot,
it would ask the user for the date.  Then, to confirm, the system would
ask "is today Monday" (or whatever day matched the date).  Of course,
the users would simply answer "yes" without reading the question, and
would miss an incorrect date entry.  So, he changed the prompt from a
simple yes/no question to "what day is it", requiring the user to
actually think about the answer.


Of course, what it really comes down to is there's only so much you can
do to protect the users from themselves.  The best you can hope for is
that you have enough CYA there so they can't blame it on you.  ;-)

Perhaps require them to type "I understand it will be my fault if this
posting job is being run in error".

-- 
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| Kenneth J. Brody        | www.hvcomputer.com |                             |
| kenbrody/at\spamcop.net | www.fptech.com     | #include <std_disclaimer.h> |
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