[Warning: long reply} :-)

Sorry if I offend someone, but from what I've read (from your post) about Cooper, he doesn't know anything about the user world.

I didn't read the "Save or not" thread, so I will probably say things that have already been said...

>A (beginning) user is making changes in a document (could be a table). When he's (or she's) finished, the user closes the document. Then the program aks the user if he wants to save the document or not. The user thinks WHAT THE HELL IS THIS ??? Why is the program asking me this. If i didn't want to save the changes i would have undo them before i closed the document (in the real world, Users don't write letters put them in envelopes and after that decide if they want to send them or not).

Yes, but in real world, people who change idea in the middle of the letter won't erase (undo) what they've done, they'll just throw it to trash and move on.

And no, beginners don't think "if I didn't want to save the changes I would have undo them". I have users who type something, realise they've entered data in the wrong record, and almost come to me crying until I tell them, "well, you haven't pressed Save yet, so just press Cancel and your changes won't be saved!" And they're releived as if their boss would have killed them! I sometimes make changes in a document to see the result (an Excel spreadsheet for example), but I don't want to save that information. How many undo do I have to press to put it back to it's original state? I'd rather make a copy, work on it and throw it to trash, but that's not a beginner's task!

I think not informing the user that his data is about to be saved is even more confusing. For example, if someone changes data in a record, presses Next to see data in the second record, comes back to the first, make other changes, decides to undo, he will expect *all* his changes to be undone, but it has been saved when he changed record. Now the user has to know what saves his data, while an explicit save is obvious.

Result: people would power off their computer if they entered the wrong data... Some already do!

>a second argument not to use explicit save modes: If you prompt dialog boxes for every time there is something to save, the user don't read this messages anymore and presses ENTER or ESCAPE when he sees a dialog box. When a real important messagebox is showing the users will instinctivly press enter or escape without reading the messages.

That is a Human problem, and no programming will solve it. If my program asks me if I want to delete my document and I stupidly tell him yes, how is he supposed to know I didn't want to? Maybe I shouldn't have pressed the delete key, but I don't look at my keyboard when I type, so maybe I wanted to press another nearby key, or maybe the cat jumped on my keyboard!

There are people that complain that there aren't enough confirmations when you try to delete a file!

Thing is that users want the application to do what they want, not what they tell them. Sorry, but I still can't make a program that will read the user's mind.

Okay, let's say we make a program that will adapt to the user: We ask questions first, then, after say, 10 times, we understand that the user always wants to save his document. Then one day, that user realizes that he doesn't want to save his document this time, but the program saves it, like every time. How mad do you think that user will be?

>Another thing which is real popular, are the messages "Are u sure, you want to close the program ?" Yes of course i'm sure, i would not have pressed ALT+F4 if i didn't want to close this program.

You'd be surprised at how many people close a program (or do an action) by accident, especially since the close button (X) in Windows 95 is so close to the Maximize button... And the mouse is nothing precise - far too easy to hit just next to your target, and produce an unwanted effect. I have sometimes selected "Save" instead of "Save As...", and I knocked my head on the wall each time!

Not to speak about the times when I was thinking about something else when I selected the wrong option in a menu!

>Much of the thing we program seem so natural to us as a developer, but are really inherrited by older programming strategies which should not be used anymore. It is time to make our programs easy to use without hundreds of dialog boxes which only confuses users, let make them mistakes, and reduces productivity.

... and help them realize they've made a mistake! *EVERY* error is human in origin, and the computer make those changes permanent faster than the human can realize he made a mistake.

How much productivity have you gained when you just erased last month's financial transactions? Why do you think backups even exist?

>I think this book by ALAN COOPER is a real MUST for developpers who want to lear more about User Interfaces, develop strategies etc.

Using Cooper's advice, there's no need for a safety belt in my car since I don't intend to crash! And there's no need for a safety lock on a firearm, since I won't press the trigger if I don't mean to shoot!

Such a philosophy makes computer far less accessible than they are. It would be: "if you don't know who to use it, don't touch it", and make exploring an application much more difficult. We've all been faced with a certain option that we couldn't figure out what it did just by the it's name, so we've tried it, and when it asked "are you sure you want to do blah blah blah?", we realized it's definitly not what we wanted, so we told him "No".

Sorry, but I am certainly not going to read that book!