Dialog Box Archaeology

May 2007

You don't need to go to Rome or Cairo to dig up the artifacts of great civilizations. If you want deduce their everyday lives and illustrious history from the shards of relics left behind, you don't even need to stand up. To reveal the record of human triumph and suffering, just open a few dusty menus in your favorite software application.

The Answer to Every Debate

Usually, arguments are resolved one of three ways: somebody wins, a compromise is reached, or everybody goes home angry and nothing gets accomplished. This is why society always has ornery, unfriendly people. Somebody always gets the shaft.

Software teams, however, seem to have a cheeky, clever solution to this intractable dilemma: delegate the decision to the user. If you can't decide whether or not to include a horizontal scroll bar, sneak a checkbox off into some options menu. That way, nobody has to lose the argument, plus you get the added bonus of fooling yourself into thinking you've given the user more options. Choice is a good thing, right?

Digging in the Dirt

Let's turn now to my very favorite relic from the world of software, the Microsoft Word Options Dialog. This is a quaint, mysterious record of an enormous, blood-curdling, fistfight in Redmond. It must have been tougher to choose features for Word than write clauses by committee for the U.S constitution. Just look at what you first see when you pull up Tools -> Options:

The designers are so unsure about what users might want, that they've organized literally hundreds of options into thirteen different sections. A few, like "Print" and "Spelling & Grammar", seem fairly self-apparent. But it's a word processor; you "Edit" and "View" text at the same time. Why are they on different tabs? And what kind of options are "General"? My installation also includes two areas for whole language groups I know nothing about: "Asian Typography" and "Japanese Find". Where are the options to get rid of these options?

The armchair dialog box archaeologist should note that the designers have created this mess of tabs to give the user a fighting chance of finding the one knob that they need to tweak. MS Word, and indeed most modern software applications, have thousands upon thousands of features. If the user must be able to adjust settings, then incredibly detailed, organized hierarchies like this one are certainly one way to make the switches and dials accessible.

Deducing the Culture

Deep inside the Word Options Dialog Box, we start to see circumstantial evidence of individual discussions and legacies. On the "General" tab, two options reference WordPerfect, a competing product. Presumably if you're making the switch from Word to WordPerfect, you might check these boxes for additional relevant help and your old familiar navigation keys. Old-school WordPerfect whizzes might notice a third choice aimed at them. "Blue background, white text" was the default appearance for that other word processor. Why not use the same "WordPerfect" language here, and group the choices together?

Perhaps the lawyers chimed in, and insisted that while the product name "WordPerfect" could be used in conjunction with features provided by Microsoft, an option reading "Duplicate WordPerfect color scheme" might invite litigation. Maybe people used WordPerfect without ever knowing the brand name. The setting is right at the top of the dialog box on the "General" tab, so maybe "How do I set my text to white-on-blue?" is a common question at Microsoft Support. We may need to leave this quandary for future graduate students to puzzle out over a late night of mocha lattes.

Choosing not to Choose

I'm particularly enamored with the "Recently Used File List" checkbox in the same part of the Word Options Dialog. You can use this as an on/off switch for the extremely useful part of the File menu which shows the files you last edited. You can even tweak the number of files displayed in this list.

It seems inconceivable that this feature should need configuration options. But with some creative thinking one can imagine some scenarios where it might be valuable. Consider a student lab environment where multiple users access the same computer throughout the day. Certainly giving quick links to the most recent "Final Report.doc" could generate confusion, so turning off the "Recently Used File List" may prevent a few heart attacks. Perhaps some professional editors working on massive projects with dozens of documents appreciate the ability to ratchet up the number of files listed for quick switching. Maybe we should honor the the programmers for their humility. They know they can't predict how we will use their software, so they graciously give us the power to rejigger it as needed.

Really, though, this is not modesty in action. Choosing not to choose is a cop-out. Delegating interface design decisions to the user is irresponsible. The everyman has no idea what is meant by terms like "Field Codes" or "Object Anchors". This dialog box is more of a war diary than it is a feature. It's an ugly baby covered with sliders and switches and control knobs from head to toe. You can tune it to stop crying or light up when grandma arrives, but only if you can find the right button. Good luck.

A Solution in Context

The academic fascination with this archaeological find ends here. This dialog box, and countless others like it, are clearly a bad way to solve the problem at hand. As software developers, we need to accept full responsibility for the applications we create, giving the user as much power as possible without sweeping the remains of heated discussions into some digital closet.

To do this, we need to first make bold choices about what really needs to be configurable. I am skeptical that Word needs it's own personal mute feature, labeled "Provide feedback with sound." Surely if you can't stand the chirps and bleeps emanating from your PC, you can find other, more obvious ways of silencing the beast.

Second, if we have to give people choices, we should try to do it in context. Microsoft does this exceptionally well in Word with the AutoCorrect family of features. Check out what happens if you start typing a numbered list:

This is a brilliant way to connect using a feature with any configuration options for that feature. Not everybody likes AutoNumbering, or needs it in every situation, and the automatic formatting is clearly something that is different than the normal function of a word processor. When the feature is enacted, though, relevant options for manipulating the function are made available. This is the best time and place for such switches and dials to appear, not off in some dialog box buried in the desert of pull-down menus.

Think of the Children

Software has the three worst timing problems in engineering. It's always rushed, it's always late, and it's always used far longer than was anticipated. All these sad realities give programmers a strong rationale to give users too many choices in places without worrying about how hard they are to find. Do not delegate your design process to the user. Be bold, and use configurability sparingly, and if possible, in context. The time you spend now will save future generations from frustrating archaeological expeditions through the depths of your application. Make your designs a joy for people to use, not a mystery.