Great article. And great examples.

I think it is impossible to overemphasize how important it is to make sure the answers, the button UI text, matches the questions asked in the headlines. Like in journalism, it really benefits to frame questions so they cannot be answered with a mere “yes/no.” Do it right up top, and the bottom almost writes itself.

You really have to put pressure on the development team in two places though.

First, UI libraries typically include default text for buttons, and programmers often don’t want to take the time to customize them. I mean, we’re “agile” and have to move fast. So you have to watch vigilantly for defaults slipping in.

Second, I don’t think that there is enough emphasis in the article that these confirmations should almost never be necessary. They are touchstones of poor system designs; systems should never be designed to prevent users from recovering from mistakes. This is the drum that should be beaten loudest, one that Alan Cooper has beaten for decades, literally. This is software, and software is meant to do work for us. When there’s no undo, no recovery mechanism, then the software pushes that work back onto users, failing in its mission.

One last note: Discussions such as these need to include any potential accessibility and localization issues, and how to design the content to overcome any of these.