Charles Miller writes about user interfaces and the trend to put up klunky dialog boxes to confirm "dangerous" actions. The dialogs rarely stop anyone from making a mistake. Folks will just click on them automatically without thinking about them. I know I do.

Charles writes: "Make your actions undo-able. Make your deletions un-deletable." Then the user always has the ability to undo any accidents that may have slipped past his fingers.

This is a great idea. I know that when I started using Emacs as my main editor, it changed the way I editted text. Emacs has an unlimited undo feature, where you can undo the file all the way back to the beginning of the edit session. Suddenly I was no longer afraid to try out new features in the editor. Sure, it might screw up the file, but savlation was only a few keystrokes away.

Let’s start a campaign to rid the world of those annoying confirmation queries!