May 19, 2008

Excluding check box User Interface.

I have found a small example for a bad User Interface.

This is the screen shot from True Image 11: (if the image is too small, you can click it.)
It looks fine. But this made one of Korean mistaking.
This User Interface assumes everybody can read English, but actually it's not true. So he checked in every check boxes, in order to make sure everything are included. I guess he didn't know what's the meaning of 'Exclude.' And he was crazy when he found his backup doesn't work as he expected.

I think most of cases, English Nouns are shared in Korean. But Verbs are not. So most of Korean might read:
  • "[ ] blabla.. all hidden files and folders"
  • "[ ] blabla.. all system files and folders"
  • "[ ] blabla.. files matching the following criteria"
So that they might check in every check boxes.

Actually the English word 'exclude' is not so hard. But I think it can be improved in better ways. For example:
  • "[x] include all hidden files and folders"
  • "[x] include all system files and folders"
  • "[x] include files matching the following criteria"
Since the meaning of check box is 'I want this,' when the sentence refers whether including or excluding, it's better to follow the traditional meaning. Or using icons can be an alternative way.

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