Dialog Boxes Text example essay topic

For the case study Tools and Techniques for Creative Design, I decide to select one of the article that I found on the website. This website address is web and the author is Lauri Kieksi. However, it does not mention the date that this website was posted, and the topic of this is "Dialog Boxes". Basically, Kieksi wants to say that should be design carefully for the dialog boxes, since it request the user to prompt the input information.

That's why when people try to design software; dialog boxes also take a major role in design part. Kieksi shows some example for comparing the different between good and bad dialog boxes. The author does not like some designer design the dialog using "Yes" and "No" on the dialog, since with the dialog boxes text above those buttons, the user has no way to know what is going to happen. Meanwhile, another example dialog box prompts the user to "Save", "Don't Save" and "Cancel", this message is clearer than the first example because without the text, user still know what is going on next, even though the user is not exactly what is going to save. It could be save a file, picture, project or other. Thus, the author said it should be ditch out the "Yes" and "No" and substitute it by the verb.

Beside that, the author want to mention the important of the text message should be clear enough so that the user could understand what happen. He gives an example about an error dialog message prints "Are you sure?" Since it does not say what kind of error is this, and does not describe clear enough. The text message should be short enough to make the user understand but not overdo descriptive messages. The long message will make the user slow down for reading information, the too short message will not make any sense for user, so it's really take time to design a well message with short but clear message... Another mistake that he found on some application forces the user type the input message "Yes", or "No" instead of click on those buttons, it will make the user slow down of the work and people hates to do it. They might consider it might not be a really good program.

His other example is about unnecessary space between buttons. In summary, the author point out the major things of the dialog boxes could make the user tired or uncomfortable to using some application because of the bad design or unclear dialog box. I personally think this is really good article for people who develop a huge software application such as Windows, Offices and etc... However, for small software, most people who design it do not consider the dialog play any major role in their design. Kieksi is very patient person and he really pays attention to a small detail such as unnecessary space between the buttons in the dialog box. He figures it out these things that most people have never thought about it.

From my point of view, I think he is a well writer and well giving example to convince his point of view. I like this paper because it gives well counter examples that make the reader easy to understand with picture to describe. I think the author does not left out any important thing, but he should giving the specific software and the case that dialog box pop up so that the reader know whether applications is well dialog or not. I don't think the research really complete because it lacks of example. I think he should give more examples so that the reader can see it. This article could make the application looks more impressive for user.

I like the ideas of this article, Kieksi is not only right this article but he also write about the "Sound Effects", "User of Color", "Icons", "Document Windows" and "Dialog Box.".