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Usability tip: "cancel" isn't the same as "no"

Warning: a pet peeve follows. 

Way, way too many programmers are in love with the words "OK" and "cancel", as in the dialog box "You are about to format your hard drive and set fire to your house. [OK] [Cancel]."

Originally, it made sense: this was your chance to either proceed with an operation or cancel it altogether. But those words have become synonyms for "yes" and "no", and that's a problem.

Take this example:

Dialog box reading 'Confirm: Do you want [deleted] to remember the username?'

(I've blocked out the name of the offending Firefox extension because, well, why single them out when there are so many other offenders?)

This box popped up while I was trying to register a domain name. It was asking me a question: did I want something to happen? And the logical answers are either "yes", "no" or (and this is asking too much from most apps) "I'm not sure; tell me more".

But "cancel"? That could mean anything from "cancel saving the username" to "cancel submitting the form" to "Stop the Internet: I want off." A few seconds of reflection later, and the likely meaning is clear... but as Steve Krug pointed out so famously, making users think (at least about interface choices) isn't a friendly thing to do.

There are still times when "OK" and "Cancel" make sense; I don't suggest jilting them altogether. But when you're asking a yes/no question, what possible reason could you have for not offering users the ability to give a yes/no answer?

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Your ChangeEverything.ca blog post could win $1,000 for your cause

Our friends (and clients) at Vancity's ChangeEverything.ca community are running a great little contest with a cool twist. Blog about a good cause (at ChangeEverything.ca), tag it "changesomething", whip up some buzz around it, and you could win a $1,000 donation from Vancity to the group you blogged about.

They're doing in in celebration of their new branches, which just opened. What I love about this is the chance to give some profile to the smaller groups out there, the folks for whom $1,000 could make a real difference.

Best-case scenario: a good cause gets the money. Worst-case scenario: even the groups that don't win get some real profile in a community of more than 1,500 people dedicated to change. And either way, some important stories get told.

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LinkedIn Answers to the rescue... plus a primer on full-post RSS feeds

Solve your business problems - with help from a community

You might think there's no other social network out there these days with the rush to Facebook. But while they're the undeniable 800-friend gorilla on the block, there's still good reason to spread your social networking around a little.

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Goodbye, Omidyar.net

Online communities with causes at their core show promise for persisting

Usually, when an online community shuts down, it's an admission of failure: not enough time or staff to keep the trolls at bay; people drifting away after an initial surge of interest gives way to a lack of a compelling reason to participate; a divisive internal conflict or catastrophic technical collapse. (And sometimes the community's hosts - or their financial backers - just plain lose interest.)

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Searching sustainably at happyfrog

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Now cartooning at One Degree

Exciting news: the wonderful Kate Trgovac has invited me to cartoon at One Degree, the premier gathering place for Canadian online marketing types. Their contributors are some of the smartest people I've met in this field, and I'm delighted to join their ranks.

So head on over, subscribe to their feed, and you can get a sneak peek at a selected Noise to Signal cartoon every week! (The first one's right here.)

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Is it a brainstorm, or just a mild low pressure area?

Facilitator addressing participant: We're just brainstorming here, so there are no dumb ideas. But if we weren't brainstorming, that would have been a really, really dumb idea.
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"Mission" statement

One person talking to another: "I think our mission statement has too many 'air quotes' in it."
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Wikipedinsomnia

(Man in bed, saying to sleeping companion) Sleep?! How can I sleep knowing someone could be editing my Wikipedia entry RIGHT NOW?!
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Where do the cool kids hang out?

Cartoon of three young people: cleancut (Facebook), menacing (MySpace) and an operator (LinkedIn)

If you follow this stuff, then chances are you've at least heard about danah boyd's blog essay looking at youth participation in online social networks through the prism of class. It's an excellent read with some valuable insights, but I don't think it's the best piece on her site.

Dig a little deeper, and you'll find a remarkable perspective on online participation by young people, one that cuts past the paranoia and panic that too often color public discussion on that topic. She starts from the radical premise that kids are people worthy of respect and dignity; her posts regularly take on political and commercial hucksterism with a rare combination of passion and rigour.

Her interests and insights range beyond youth as well. If you'd like to check out her blog, have a look at some of her greatest hits – and then let me know what you think.

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