Every time I finish a transaction at the ATM near my apartment, I get this prompt before exit:
Press Yes to continue and No to exit.
(Yes)
(No)
It’s one thing to use that kind of Yes/No prompts when you have limited options (in JavaScript alert boxes, for example), but it’s plain bad design when you use the same kind of alerts when you have complete control over the labels, as in the case of ATM machines.
The design seems to have been limited by the imaginary constraint of writing the messages for an alert based prompt. When the ATMs can have custom labels on the screen for each option, it doesn’t make sense to ask a Yes/No question. Why couldn’t the message and labels be more intuitive like this?
Your transaction is complete. Would you like to continue to another transaction or exit?
(Continue)
(Exit)
It may not make a huge difference, but it saves me half a second of thinking about whether to press “Yes” or “No”.
Do you remember such instances of poor design choices in contexts outside web design? Do share some examples in the comments.