Recommended Reading

• Cooper, Alan. About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design. Foster City, CA: IDG Books Worldwide, Inc., 1995.

Chapter 13, "Overhead and Idiocy," describes how software often has unnecessary overhead, which he calls excise since it doesn't contribute to performing the task at hand. Idiocy is how Cooper describes it when a program stops a task to ask a stupid question with an unnecessary message box. As Cooper puts it, "The typical error message box is unnecessary. It either tells the user something that he doesn't care about or demands that he fix some situation that the program could usually fix just as well." Chapter 28, "The End of Errors," presents a thought-provoking discussion about message boxes, particularly error messages. Cooper's theory: "I believe that, with proper design, all error messages and confirmation dialogs can be eliminated." While I don't agree with this theory, and I don't know anyone else who does either, most of the ideas presented are worth serious consideration. Chapter 29, "Managing Exceptions," introduces the "inverted meta-question," which "tells a dialog to go away and not ask again. In this way, a user can make an unhelpful dialog box stop badgering him, even though the program mistakenly thinks it is helping."

• Microsoft Corporation. Designing for the User Experience. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 1999.

See the chapter on secondary windows for guidelines on message box types, title bar text, message box text, and button text. Essential information.

• Tognazzini, Bruce. Tog on Interface. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1992.

Chapter 28, "More Short Subjects," presents a discussion and guidelines on when to use time-closure dialog boxes.