Hacker News Reader

Some good stuff in there! I really like this one:

Forgiveness

Users like to explore an interface and often learn by trial and error. An effective interface allows for interactive discovery. It provides only appropriate sets of choices and warns users about potential situations where they may damage the system or data, or better, makes actions reversible or recoverable.

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Yes! And if software lets a user do something that lands them in an error condition, then there should be a way to recover from that condition in the software.

For me, undo is probably one of the greatest inventions in computing next to the compiler and the internet.

Haha!

I’m home on sick leave today, a colleague just called because he’s unchecked some boxes in the CAM software resulting in the license being disabled and the check boxes disappear.

I’ve remoted in, no obvious and no hidden way to get the check boxes back, so he has to call the support line.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com