Re: Click X, or click the X button?

[Chris Despopoulos <despopoulos_chriss -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Whether you *want* users to skim and click has little to do with whether they *do* skim and click.  In fact I'm sure they will, no matter how deeply you bury the information (not that you're actually burying the info -- there's no accusation in this statement).  I'm also more of an anarchist, in that I believe people want to do the right thing, and they generally do (so long as the political system doesn't give them incentive to maintain a coercive status quo).  In other words, I believe users will indeed skim, and if they find a button to click that they don't understand, they'll go back to the docs and learn about it.  (And as true anarchists, they'll feel like usurping your authority if all you say is, "To foo the bar, click foo.")

SNIP...   Plus,
> although I have heard the argument that it makes the
> steps easier to skim, frankly I'm not sure that we
> really *want* users to just select options and click
> buttons without reading any warnings or other
> informational text in between.



      
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