Comments on: Message boxes are dead

By: Mulkazarus

Mulkazarus — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:28:15 +0000

2]Get your own Nintendo Wii
The games console with one of the strangest names on the planet (it’s pronounced ‘wee’) is also one of the most innovative. In fact, with its potential to change the face of the gaming landscape, Wii may be on the verge of a new era, if you’ll pardon the pun.
The $400 Wii package comprises a square white console unit and stand that plugs into your TV or AV receiver, a wireless sensor bar that connects to the console and receives wireless commands from the battery-powered paddle-style Wiimote controller. Basic composite cables are supplied, but if you have a plasma or LCD the $50 component cable options will deliver better picture quality. The console also supports an SD slot, USB port and a DVD drive for games.
Games data can be saved to SD memory cards, which weren’t officially released at the time of publication, but in lieu of their arrival, GameCube memory cards will suffice. The USB port can’t be used to save games either, but will enable future hardware upgrades such as a hard drive or DVD player, although no announcements have been made to this effect.
Despite its DVD drive, the console is not a DVD player (a modification chip is required if you want to watch movies). Nor is it the high definition, hard drive-toting, networked multimedia online multiplayer gaming machine that is the Xbox 360 or forthcoming Playstation 3. Instead, it presents as the most affordable ‘next generation’ games machine available and, certainly, lacks for no important ingredients if you want to have fun.

By: Tess

Tess — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:39:11 +0000

i’d call that “hieghts of user friendliness”

By: AnthonyDamasco

AnthonyDamasco — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 17:22:58 +0000

Spyware on IE 6 would use message boxes all the time into tricking people into downloading crazy stuff. Message boxes should be avoided if at all possible in any software.

By: Niyaz PK

Niyaz PK — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 05:39:51 +0000

Morgan,
The ‘toast’ is a great way to get rid of message boxes.

Jim,
My mistake. You are right. I have updated the post.

By: Steven G. Harms

Steven G. Harms — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 01:14:53 +0000

As an email administrator, when I first read this I thought that the article was that mbox/RFC822 message boxes were dead ( and they, arguably, well may be ).

By: jim swanson

jim swanson — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:46:06 +0000

I think you are mixing up ‘infrequently used critical system maintenance applications’ with ‘basic everyday web apps’, certainly in your example you are.

You are quite wrong when it comes to registry importing. This is a rare process (how many .reg files do *you* import in a month? If the answer is ‘more than a few’, you need something other than regedit), quite important to the system (so yes, you should be asked to confirm it), and critical to know if it has succeeded or failed (hence the end-of-operation feedback). Furthermore, since regedit which does the importing is not usually running on a system, there is no place for the kind of asynchronous notification you are advocating. The only place I can think of that would make sense is a balloon dialog, which still doesn’t make much sense, as it adds another UI element to the system tray which is ephemeral and will vanish momentarily anyway. Better in this case to go with the message box, easily dismissed with a tap of the space bar or enter key.

By: Binny V A

Binny V A — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:56:21 +0000

Another nice thing from gmail – it takes the decision for you – and then ask if you want to ‘undo’ it. For example…
The conversation was deleted. [Undo?]

That’s a new idea – and it don’t need user input.

By: Morgan

Morgan — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:41:17 +0000

I have always hated such message boxes. I think a better solution is something similar to the Windows Live Messenger “toast” (I believe that is what it is called, I am talking about the popup above the clock when a user signs in, etc.).

It can give the user the information they need at a glance without stealing focus and gives them something to click on if they want/need to. You could even integrate option buttons easily and just keep the toast on screen until it is clicked but it is still out of the way and allowing the user to continue working.

I believe the “ballon” prompts introduced in Windows 2000 (?) were sort of a replacement to information message boxes however they were too limited IMHO. I am unsure if their limitations have been addressed in Vista?

By: Lucas

Lucas — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:56:07 +0000

One could argue that the second screenshot should get partial credit
since it’s alerting the user to a potential security breech; it would
get nearly full credit if it actually *mentioned* that fact.

As for the rest, I’ve stolen the Google Mail convention of “status
message with undo link” for my web applications (oddly, Google Calendar still used a message box, last I checked). A benefit not
mentioned is that it stops training users to click “OK” or “Yes” in all
message boxes by reflex.

By: Niyaz PK

Niyaz PK — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:05:46 +0000

F.Baube,
That is true. A similar thing happens with IE too when we try to load web pages with javascript.(especially Gmail). The tab is switched and we are in a different context. Oops!!!