It’s a question, dammit

Arrggh!

Yet ANOTHER message box that contains a question that can only elicit a Yes/No response, but instead has the options of OK and Cancel.

The OK isn’t so bad as it answers the question with an acceptable response: “Would you like to see a description of the updates that have been installed?”, “OK”. If I click OK, I expect to see the update descriptions, and I do.

But what does Cancel mean? “Would you like to see a description of the updates that have been installed?”, “Cancel”. That’s just a meaningless response option for this question.

A question like this should only have Yes/No response options.

And to compound the confusion about what to choose, there’s a second option in the message box: “Do not show this message again next time” Huh? Does OK/Cancel apply to this option too? And isn’t ‘again next time’ redundant? And this option contains a negative action (‘Do not show’), whereas the first question was phrased as a positive action. No wonder users get confused.

Maybe it would be better if the wording in this message box was something like:

Your updates were installed.

<check box> Show descriptions of these updates

<check box> Show this message next time updates are installed

OK / Cancel

That way the Yes/No responses are captured in the states of the check boxes, and the OK/Cancel options are valid.

User confusion can easily be avoided by using clear communication.