What kind of program feedback do you prefer?

Steviemoyne

Curious as to what kind of software to user feedback people prefer when using a piece of software.

Example: When I save data on one form I show a message box which says "Data saved successfully" with a button that says "OK". That's one example that I thought could use improvement and I'm thinking of changing it to a Toast window (small prompt box that displays information for a few seconds then goes away).

This got me thinking, what do people like the best for getting software feedback? Having to confirm (message box) toast windows (example would be Steam when a user logs in, or outlook when you receive a new message).

Or do you like different systems completely? Another way of prompting I thought might be good is a blank label that changes colour and displays "Saved" and then changes back to blank. My issue with that is the user might not see it.

KonFusion

Depends completely on the situation and what I'm doing at the time.

If I'm using banking software, and I've just transferred 20k to an account, I want a nice big box with lots of positivity to tell me what a great job I've done in not ****ing anything up.

However if I'm managing something via a dash and I change something (lets say you update a wordpress page or something) then something simpler and unobtrusive (like a nice green affirmative label or the like) that lets me know its done is far better, as I could potentially be doing this task a lot, and if I had to 'ok' a prompt box every time I'd go mad.

It all depends on the context.

Steviemoyne

Indeed, carrying out saving would be a prompt the user has to click OK to confirm the details they entered. But after saving to say "Yep, it's saved...all is good" having to click OK seems a little pointless.

Eoin

I'm more familiar with web apps than desktop ones, but I don't like pop-ups that tell me everything is OK. It becomes habit to close them automatically, and then you wonder afterwards, was I shown a confirmation message or an error?

If you're creating a record, then maybe you should be brought to the view screen of that record. If you're adding an item to a list (e.g. a to-do list), then maybe the grid updating is feedback enough.

If it's a critical interaction - like a bank transfer mentioned above, then maybe a dedicated confirmation screen is more appropriate, even if it requires the user to navigate more.

Or maybe a banner at the top of the screen that fades/can be dismissed (but isn't modal) - that could be too website-y though.

Maybe even within the same app, the rules don't need to be too consistent, and it can depend on the user journey / importance of the action.

Steviemoyne

Eoin wrote: »

Or maybe a banner at the top of the screen that fades/can be dismissed (but isn't modal) - that could be too website-y though.

That's the approach I went for after saving occurs. A box rises and fades into view in the bottom right and then after 3 or 5 seconds fades out unless you directly move the mouse over it, then it fades out when you mouse off.

I like that approach myself. A lot of the actions of this particular program are critical actions, ie: cannot be easily reversed. So I went for a kind of two system user feedback.
1. Before saving prompt is everything correct. 2. When it saves successfully show the box in the bottom right that says "Saved successfully".

Should it not save successfully however a prompt appears informing the user why.

Trojan

Eoin wrote: »

I don't like pop-ups that tell me everything is OK. It becomes habit to close them automatically, and then you wonder afterwards, was I shown a confirmation message or an error?

+1

What I normally do to avoid that scenario is disable the Return/Enter/Space/Escape keys, then have the message box pop-up at pseudo-random X,Y coordinates on screen.

Never had a single complaint that the user didn't read the message text.

(Didn't get a whole lot of feedback the time I forgot to re-enable the keys either).