November 18th, 2003

Make sure the buttons match the question

When your program displays a dialog box with buttons, please make the buttons match the text. Consider this dialog, which appears after you install patches from Windows Update:

It asks a yes/no question, but the options are “OK” and “Cancel”. Either the buttons should be changed to “Yes” and “No”, or the text of the message should be changed to match the OK/Cancel buttons. In the latter case, the text could go something like, “Windows Update will restart your computer. If you want to restart later, or close other programs first, click Cancel, and then restart your computer manually.”

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Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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