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Re:Writing - Human Interface Guidelines by jeroenhd on Monday March 06, 2023 @02:44AM (#35038463)
I would personally go with a much shorter "Are you still there? If you're not, we'll log you out to protect your account." The buttons speak for themselves and the more words you add to a message, the less of it people will read.

Hell, if one button says "stay signed in" and the other says "log out", I don't even know if I'd go with a message that long. Just "are you still there" may be enough, with a redirect to the "why did I get logged out" page if you let the timer lapse.

On the other hand, I want error messages to be as descriptive as possible, with a short summary for normal users perhaps. Operational messages may be short and sweet, but if I need to solve a problem, I've had it with the "oopsie whoopsie we made a mistakey wakey" messages apps produce these days.

Re:Writing - Human Interface Guidelines by ysleepy on Monday March 06, 2023 @10:18AM (#35041988)
I don't like being asked something if the question/answer does clearly communicate the consequences are.

Either the broad question is patronizing, suggesting the program makes decisions over my head without even informing me what about, or it is superfluous since the explanation+action is all I want or need.

I really do not enjoy programs behaving like they have intelligence by being vague or leading, but really never are, since their logic only covers the common case.

Re:Writing - Human Interface Guidelines by systemvoltage on Monday March 06, 2023 @03:42PM (#35047290)
Disagree, your suggestion sounds anything but calm. It's like the computer is angry at me and it's fed up of my inactivity.