"Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]" wrote:

I will say this once and once only.

Closing a program rather than a window IS a behavioral problem in that the
person does not verify what they are closing and then blames the program
when it did exactly what the person told it to do.

Sorry, blaming software for inadvertance or just plain ineptitude is silly.
Asking someone to program in a Nanny option dumbs down the program and
insults users. Sorry - if that ever happens, I will either immediately turn
off the option or uninstall the program.


Sounds like you're completely against program confirmations then?

If so, aren't important or potentially destructive actions worth confirming,
like "Do you really want to erase your entire drive?" And does your attitude
extend to your interactions in the world at large? How about warning signs -
are those "nanny"ish also?

I and other people close windows or do other things inadvertently not
usually because we're inept, but because we all establish rhythms and
patterns, and software can be written to take those patterns into account
(especially the patterns the software itself helps create!).

Good UI programming includes confirmations for reasonably infrequent and
damaging user actions, and the ability to turn those confirmations off if the
user desires. There's no reason that a user should feel that a competently
designed UI is "dumbed down" just because it includes confirmations,
especially if the user can make the confirmations disappear.