I've been working on something that I call the Error Prevention exercise, a simple little checklist to use to reduce the number of possible errors on a web page. I found something that is a great example of this - the pop-up menu on a misspelled word inFirefox 2.0.
The top two items are seemingly very related and located close to each other, however, the result of clicking on them produces drastically different results:
The first item corrects the spelling of the misspelled word.
The second item adds the misspelled word to your dictionary.
One fixes an error. The other could fix the error permanently, or it could prevent you from ever fixing the error again.
The fact that these two choices are so close to each other increases the likelihood that I might select the wrong choice - with possibly very negative consequences (I know because I've now added two misspelled words to my dictionary - whoops!).
Of course I blamed myself the first time I did it, but the second time I realized that this was just poor design.
Now, before I get berated with tons of hate mail, keep in mind that I really LOVE Firefox. I never use IE anymore.
The question really comes down to this: what are the consequences of someone clicking the wrong choice? If the consequences are high, make sure that the error is hard to make.
Perhaps they could have added something in between the two choices, maybe "Ignore"?
What do you think?
