When is it appropriate to ask User confirmation?

A couple of times I archived some of my emails accidentally ( touch screen you know ) . They don't usually ask for confirmation while archiving messages or emails. But they do while deleting . So in what situations is it appropriate to ask for user confirmation ?

Answer

User confirmation is almost always a bad solution. It breaks the user's flow and there's a real risk of habitually clicking yes on the confirmation. It basically makes 99% of the actions require more attention to catch the 1% that go wrong. And it works poorly.

This article explains it better than I can.

Of course, if there's no undo option, a confirmation is often the only option, but even then there are better or additional ways of making the user aware of the risk:

• Separate the dangerous actions from the safe ones by space and color. Make sure the user is already aware of the risk before initiating the action and make sure to limit the risk of initiating the action accidentally


• Queue the action if immediate feedback is not required (Gmail can do this when sending an email). Give the user some time to realize a possible mistake. This basically gives you a temporary undo.


• Show a preview in the confirmation dialog. If the confirmation changes appearance in a meaningful way, it can help to break the user out of the habitual flow. A kind of "oh wait, I don't want that!" response.