Friends, Romans, Countrymen and Developers, lend me your ears. For it is time that the "Are You Sure?" dialog meets its demise. It is time that it annoys its last user, it is time it gets ignored by its last viewer, it is time it gets deleted by its last developer.
The "Are You Sure?" dialog came into being in the early days of computing, when things were text, undo had not yet been invented and dialogs were vocal discussions between people who were too pretentious to use the word discussion. It was a time if limited CPU, memory and disk, a time that predated the trash can. It was a time when deleting a file actually deleted it, a time when changing data meant that the computer forgot what was there before, and a time when computer asked questions were uncommon and not ignored.
Along came the trash can on this thing called a Macintosh, and file deletes were no longer irreversible. Delete a file, no problem, its NOT deleted, its in the trash. Why does the system still ask if I am sure I want to delete a file?
Following came undo, around the same time as cut, copy and paste, and we all use it well. Change some data, undo, mess up a document, undo, delete some rows in a spreadsheet, undo. So why do applications still ask if I am sure? If I make a mistake, I should always be able to undo. Asking if user's are unsure, makes them unsure, makes them fear their software and their interactions with it.
There was a time when the modal popup dialog box provided valuable information. And in that time, people read these popups. But then these popups started to proliferate. "You have an error" looks just like "I saved your data OK" which looks just like "Click here to install malware" which looks just like "Are You Sure?". Average users just ignore popups, click OK and move on, so lets reduce their interruptions by getting rid of the "Are You Sure?" ones first.
There are those who argue that sometimes the "Are You Sure?" is necessary. I'd agree that fully destructive events (like emptying the trash) should require a confirmation, but I'd argue that there are few fully destructive events left in computing that cannot be undone. And there there is the case when the user hits cancel with unsaved changes, surely then the app should ask an "Are You Sure?". I'd argue that the concept of saving should also meet its demise, let the system save everything, and if you don't want your changes, make the cancel button simply undo them (and if the user realizes a mistake, a redo will fix it).
Software should allow users to do whatever they want, even destructive acts, without annoying them. Software should also forgive user actions and mistakes and allow them to undo everything.
So please, friends, help make "Are You Sure?" achieve a dignified end. And may we rarely see it again.
Are you Sure? Ye-haaa!
