slightly OT: preventing user stupidity

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 12:08:56PM -0500, Joe Chasan wrote:
> 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?

The *real* goal here, of course, is to provide a requirement that
allows you to say, in court, "Did you make an action that required a
conscious act of choice?" and get the answer "Yes."

Then it's their fault.

:-)

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
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      If you can read this... thank a system adminstrator.  Or two.  --me