Obviously the researcher wants good data, and gaps in the data are bad... so, while I first read a policy statement that indicated everything I was doing was voluntary and I could stop at any time, the rhetoric of this particular interface which privileges the researcher's perspective, thus working directly against the goals of the document that stresses that my contribution is voluntary. This interface pressures a volunteer to conform, since it presents going back to supply the "missing" data is the only "OK" option. By contrast, my decision to withhold information is associated with the "Cancel" button -- not exactly my favorite button in the world, since I click it only when I'm frustrated and giving up. While it's a stretch to suggest that I've been harmed by the psychological manipulation this interface attempts, I see the interface working against the ethical goals of the "your rights as a volunteer" statement I had to read through before I started the survey.
To top it all off, when I finally went ahead and hit "Cancel," I got a "server not found" message.
Not only did this survey waste my time, and the time of who knows how many other people who took it, it also wasted the time of the researcher -- who's going to have to get another list of potential survey respondents.
‘Click Cancel to Proceed’: Pop-Up Dialog Rhetoric
A little while ago, I got an e-mail from a Ph.D. student working on a research project. Would I mind filling out an online form that asked questions about leadership and religion? The form says I can leave certain questions blank. So I do. After I’ve filled out about 20 items, I realize there’s one multiple choice question that doesn’t apply to me. I’ve already ticked a radio button, but there’s no way to untick it, and no option for “does not apply to me”. Oh, well… I pick an answer at random, since I’m too lazy to hit “Clear” and punch in all the data again just to correct this one item.
When I push “submit”, I get the follwing dialog box:
On too many occasions, I’ve seen a form go blank because I’ve accidentally hit “Cancel,” so I take a lot of time reading this before I choose what to do.
Obviously the researcher wants good data, and gaps in the data are bad… so, while I first read a policy statement that indicated everything I was doing was voluntary and I could stop at any time, the rhetoric of this particular interface which privileges the researcher’s perspective, thus working directly against the goals of the document that stresses that my contribution is voluntary. This interface pressures a volunteer to conform, since it presents going back to supply the “missing” data is the only “OK” option. By contrast, my decision to withhold information is associated with the “Cancel” button — not exactly my favorite button in the world, since I click it only when I’m frustrated and giving up. While it’s a stretch to suggest that I’ve been harmed by the psychological manipulation this interface attempts, I see the interface working against the ethical goals of the “your rights as a volunteer” statement I had to read through before I started the survey.
To top it all off, when I finally went ahead and hit “Cancel,” I got a “server not found” message.
Not only did this survey waste my time, and the time of who knows how many other people who took it, it also wasted the time of the researcher — who’s going to have to get another list of potential survey respondents.
Oh, well… it gave me something to blog about.
View Comments
Har har.
No, I'm sure the German and Russian versions of JavaScript DO say "OK" and "Cancel"...only it's in German and Russian, not english. ;-)
I'm sure that the German or the Russian versions of JavaScript probably don't say "OK" and "Cancel," but I guess that feature wouldn't be available to the user.
I very carefully avoided stating that I thought it was possible to personalize the output of the "verify()" procedure... but that's being even more pedantic and defensive. ;-P
I stand corrected.
Will is correct; I spent quite a bit of time researching the "Confirm" dialog and other options; I don't think it's possible to override the names on the buttons, or to build a custom dialog box, in JavaScript.
I agree with both of you that it might help if I were to reverse the sense of the buttons. I hope to do some follow-on research in a few months, comparing the responses of U.S. bloggers with those outside the U.S.; I'll see if I can get it right on that one. *grin*
Thanks again for your insight. I appreciate your comments.
PS - I do agree with your point though. Forget what the buttons say. By berating the user for not answering all the questions first, and only mentioning that they can go on anyways at the very end of the message, the dialogue is clearly sending a message of "You should have filled in all the boxes!"
"I'm sure it's possible to post a personalized dialog box with buttons of your own choosing" - did you really mean to write this, or did you mean to write "I'm not sure..."
As your resident programming expert, I do not believe that it is possible to personalize the dialog box - you always get 'Ok' or 'Cancel'. Especially if you want it to work on non-IE browsers. Of course it's my 30 second opinion, I don't have to time to look it up myself.
Of course, the survey author could have used ok for "go ahead anyways" and cancel for "no, I forgot something" as you suggested.
Mike, thanks for your explanation.
In your case, the user has just clicked a button that means "I want to submit this form." In that context, "OK" should mean, "Go ahead and submit it anyway, it's okay with me" and "Cancel" should mean "I changed my mind, forget about that request."
I'm sure it's possible to post a personalized dialog box with buttons of your own choosing, but even if it's not possible to change the way the "verify" function works, you could change the program so that when it returns TRUE (because the user hit OK) it lets the user do what he/she wanted to do (namely, submit the data) and when it returns FALSE (signifying the user clicked "Cancel") then send the user back to the form.
Best of luck on your project.
Hi, Dennis,
I'm the Ph.D. student you're referring to. Since you raise several issues here, I'd like to respond to them, and to apologize for your frustrating experience.
The survey is hosted on one server (homepage.mac.com) but that server doesn't have the capability to process forms. The form is therefore "pointed at" a different server (206.55.143.38:81), which processes the form and returns the respondent to a "Thank you" page (back on homepage.mac.com). Alas, over the weekend 206.55.143.38:81 went down, so that you and some other respondents were not able to submit the form. As you may suppose, I have spent much of the day sending out apologies to the folks I had invited to participate in the survey.
You asked about the dialog box. In a test version of this study, I found that some users inadvertently skipped questions that they had actually wanted to complete. As you observe, missing data wreaks havoc with my survey, so I don't want to lose data that the respondent was willing to supply.
I therefore added a bit of software that tells respondents that they've skipped at least one question in a section; the dialog box allows them to return and fill it in, or click Cancel to skip it.
The names on the buttons--OK and Cancel--are not intended to imply that "going back to supply the 'missing' data is the only 'OK' option," nor was I attempting "psychological manipulation." The real explantion is quite simple--JavaScript (the scripting language available in most major browsers) doesn't give me the option to change those buttons. (See a descripton of this dialog box at http://webreference.com/programming/javascript/confirm/.) Like you, I would have preferred to give those button names that would communicate more clearly the two options "Fill in the data" or "Submit the form anyway." Since I couldn't change the buttons, I attempted to do the next best thing, and explain the options in the dialog box. Obviously, at least in one case, I was not successful in communicating my intent.
Your suggestion that I give users a way to "untick" a radio button is an excellent one; this problem didn't show up during the preliminary testing, so I didn't think to include such a feature. I will add that feature in the next release.
Thanks again for participating in my study. Again, I'm sorry that you weren't able to submit your data, and apologize for wasting your time.
Warmest regards,
Mike Morgan
Office: 909 706 3057
E-mail: michmor@regent.edu