"When most people buy a car, they don’t expect to have to learn how an engine works and how to change spark plugs. They buy a car so they can drive it to get from point A to point B. If the car makes a funny noise, they will ignore it as long as possible. Eventually, it may bother them to the point of taking it to a mechanic who will ask incredulously, “How long has it been doing this?” And the answer will be something like, “Oh, about a year.” The same goes for computers. People don’t want to learn about gigabytes and baud and security zones. They just want to send email to their friends and surf the web. I myself have thrown out a recall notice because I thought it was junk mail. And computers are so filled with pop-up messages that any new pop-up message is treated as just another piece of junk mail to be thrown away. Automobile manufacturers have learned to consolidate all their error messages into one message called “Check engine”. People are conditioned to take the car in to a mechanic when the “Check engine” light goes on, and let the mechanic figure out what is wrong. Can we have a “Check engine” light for computers? Would it be feasible?"
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[ The default answer to every dialog box is “Cancel”, via The Old New Thing ] (via timoni)
This makes you think twice about UI design habits so far.
