{"id":999,"date":"2007-12-06T08:44:41","date_gmt":"2007-12-06T13:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/12\/06\/on-the-other-hand-or-dont-steal-the-focus-part-2\/"},"modified":"2007-12-06T08:44:41","modified_gmt":"2007-12-06T13:44:41","slug":"on-the-other-hand-or-dont-steal-the-focus-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/12\/06\/on-the-other-hand-or-dont-steal-the-focus-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"On The Other Hand – or, Don’t Steal the Focus: Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Touching again on the whole topic of “don’t steal the focus,” I thought I’d point out that the Microsoft Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines<\/a> has an entire section just on Error Messages<\/a>, and wouldn’t you know… they advise you not<\/em> to steal the focus from the user.<\/p>\n

Although they may sometimes be guilty of violating their own guidelines, I have to give Microsoft credit for producing this document. Not only do they tell you what the guidelines are, but they provide examples of “wrong” behavior – which are almost always from Microsoft products!<\/p>\n

It takes guts to admit you’re wrong, and that’s basically what they’ve done here. They poke at Windows XP quite a bit, and (surprisingly) even some bits of Windows Vista itself… which is weird, in a way. Windows Vista violating the Windows Vista guidelines. Huh.<\/p>\n

If you have a lot of time to kill, reading through those design guidelines is well worth it. Though I can’t help but notice that these guidelines seem to take a lot of cues from… Apple. Especially the whole “verb\/action button” policy. Instead of using “Yes\/No\/Cancel,” instead they now recommend using something like “Delete\/Don’t Delete\/Cancel.” Notice how the one with verbs on the buttons is easier to understand? You don’t even need to see the dialog box – you know immediately<\/em> what it’s going to do. The Mac has been doing that for years, but Windows has just caught on – and I am very glad it did. It just makes sense, after all.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’m digressing here. Go read the guidelines (or at least the ones for error messages) and in the future you may find yourself noticing violations… and then you’ll get annoyed at programs that steal the focus, just like I do. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Touching again on the whole topic of “don’t steal the focus,” I thought I’d point out that the Microsoft Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines has an entire section just on Error Messages, and wouldn’t you know… they advise you not to steal the focus from the user. Although they may sometimes be guilty of violating… Continue reading On The Other Hand – or, Don’t Steal the Focus: Part 2<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[97],"class_list":["post-999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-software","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-g7","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":997,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/12\/05\/dont-steal-the-focus\/","url_meta":{"origin":999,"position":0},"title":"Don’t Steal the Focus","author":"Keith Survell","date":"December 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Jeff Atwood made a wonderful post the other day called Please Don't Steal My Focus, and I have to say I wholeheartedly agree with him. Of course, the question that is raised is \"why are programs still doing this?\" My pick for \"worst offender\" is, ironically, Microsoft Word. When you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "tech"","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1026,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/01\/14\/im-sorry-but-windows-vista-still-seems-too-slow\/","url_meta":{"origin":999,"position":1},"title":"I’m Sorry, but Windows Vista still seems too slow","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I was downloading a file in Windows Vista today - I would say it was a \"medium-sized\" file that took no time at all on my super-fast cable modem connection to download. However, once it was done, this popped up: This new dialog took longer to calculate the time remaining\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "tech"","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":998,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/12\/05\/learn-from-vista%e2%80%99s-mistakes\/","url_meta":{"origin":999,"position":2},"title":"Learn from Vista\u2019s Mistakes","author":"Keith Survell","date":"December 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A number of interesting posts detailing some behind-the-scenes type stuff about Vista: Mini-Microsoft: Copying Xerox, Vista Mistakes, and VP Perspectives Windows Vista Feedback - Chris Pirillo 65 More Windows Vista Mistakes - Chris Pirillo As a software developer myself, I both cringe at these sorts of things (Microsoft should know\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "tech"","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4149,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2013\/02\/15\/third-and-final-look-at-windows-8\/","url_meta":{"origin":999,"position":3},"title":"A Third (and Final) Look at Windows 8","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"After living with Windows 8 for a full 6 months, it's time to take a measured final look at Microsoft's ambitious attempt to merge the desktop & tablet OS.","rel":"","context":"In "My Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"windows 8","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2012\/08\/windows-8.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1873,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/03\/17\/i-upgraded-to-vista-but-for-all-the-wrong-reasons\/","url_meta":{"origin":999,"position":4},"title":"I Upgraded to Vista – But for all the Wrong Reasons","author":"Keith Survell","date":"March 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Even though I swore I wouldn\u2019t upgrade to Vista, just recently I bit the bullet and did it anyway. But I did it for all the wrong reasons.","rel":"","context":"In "My Life"","block_context":{"text":"My Life","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"vista","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2009\/03\/vista-thumb.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":845,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/02\/12\/why-i-wont-upgrade-to-vista\/","url_meta":{"origin":999,"position":5},"title":"Why I Won’t Upgrade to Vista","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Why I won't Upgrade to Vista: Three letters: DRM.","rel":"","context":"In "Rants"","block_context":{"text":"Rants","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/rants\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}