Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!fernwood!apple!apple.com!Curbow
From: Curbow@apple.com (David Curbow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: The "infamous" OK button
Message-ID: <10548@goofy.Apple.COM>
Date: 2 Oct 90 23:17:50 GMT
References: <2093@krafla.rhi.hi.is>
Sender: usenet@Apple.COM
Organization: Apple Computer
Lines: 48

I'm one of the Human Interface people at Apple, so I'll give you our 
current thinking about the "OK" button.

You are right in arguing that "OK" isn't always the right button name. We 
have begun advising our registered developers (via Human Interface Note 
#10, May 17, 1990) that the action button should be better worded. This 
advice will eventually appear in a new version of the Human Interface 
Guidelines (or somewhere), but here's the relevant part now.

Begin quote

Alert boxes that provide the user a choice should be worded as questions 
to which there is an unambiguous affermative response. The button for this 
affirmative response is called the action button. Whenever possible, label 
the action button with the action that it performs. Button names such as 
"Save", "Quit", or "Erase Disk" allow experienced users to click the 
correct button without reading the text of a familiar dialog. These labels 
are often clearer than words like "OK" or "Yes". Avoid negatively-phrased 
questions because they inevitably cause confusion as to what the action 
button will do.

If the action can't be condensed conveniently into a word of two, use 
"OK". Also use "OK" when the alert is simply giving the user information 
without providing any choices.

Whenever possible, provide a button that allows the user to back out of 
the operation that caused the alert box to be displayed. This button is 
activated when the user types command-. (command-period) of hits the 
Escape key. Frequently this button is named "Cancel", but use a more 
specific name if it's concise and unambiguous, such as "Don't Erase". ...

End quote

So, why do we use "OK" when your disk is damaged and there's nothing you 
can do? We need something to allow the user to say "I've read this" and OK 
has historically be the action verb. You're right that some heavy swearing 
might help, but of course that's not going to be acceptable to many of our 
users. Your other proposal "include two buttons one which says "OK" and 
another which says "NOT OK" both of which accomplish the same thing (just 
to make a point :-)" is not workable because it would make some users 
think that they were able to get out of the situation - but they can't. We 
encourage developers to allow users to cancel from every operation 
possible, so users shouldn't (heavy emphasis) see many alerts like you 
describe. Unfortunately sometimes there is no recovery possible.

Hope this has helped.

Dave Curbow