How Dare a Computer Challenge our Instruction!
Several times a day, almost every day of the week, our computers pose an unnecessary, nagging question to us that undermines our self-worth and consumes our attention.
It’s such a tiny interaction that many of us think it to be of little consequence. However, if we look at the issue at a global scale we see a colossal, tragic waste of brain power.
Here’s the situation:
You decide to close a document.
You hit X in the top corner to make it go away
But it doesn’t…
A popup asks “Are you sure” you know what you are doing
You hit confirm (of course you know what you’re doing)
The document closes 🙂
Hooray, you successfully closed a document! When spelt out like that, it seems like a pretty tedious process for such a simple action. It may seem brief in practice, but that’s only because we’re used to it. The temptation is to just accept the task and not complain, but we will not stand for this. The reason why is to do with aggregate numbers:
There are 3.7bn computer users worldwide
They encounter five “Are you sure” popups per day
The “Are you sure” popup takes an extra two seconds to dismiss
The human race collectively wastes 37bn seconds every day simply confirming to their computers that they are sure. To put it another way:
1,173 years
…of human cognitive effort is wasted every day 😱
Dear tech industry,
Have you heard of the “undo” feature? Instead of gaslighting your users into self-doubt, why not allow people to “CTRL-Z” their way out of an accidental window closure? You could save your own species an entire millennium of thinking every day.
By the way, there are no “Are you sure” popups in noc™. Our design team has faith in our users and we trust that they know what they’re doing. We respect the human capacity for attention. We make tools that are helpful, not confusing.
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