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Dialog Box

December 31st, 2008

Does the following dialog box make sense to you? That is, are you able to answer the question it asks?

[Nonsensical dialog box]

Think about it for a bit, then see the comments for this post for the answer.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 at 1653 UTC and is filed under Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

3 Responses to “Dialog Box”

  1. Darren Says:
    December 31st, 2008 at 1655 UTC

    The answer:

    If you interpret the question as offering a choice between “move” or “copy”, then answering “yes” or “no” makes no sense. But if you interpret it as asking “(move or copy)” or “don’t (move or copy)”, then the “yes” or “no” choice does make sense.

    I, of course, saw it the former way, and it confused the hell out of me.

    This beautiful gem happened under Windows XP when copying files from one Windows share to another.

  2. Peter Says:
    January 1st, 2009 at 0305 UTC

    Perhaps “and/or” would make it clearer.

  3. Teresa Says:
    January 2nd, 2009 at 0720 UTC

    I’m with you, Darren! If the dialog box doesn’t know which you are doing – moving or copying – that’s not a good sign! How hard would it be to say that specifically and then ask the yes or no question? But maybe my common sense is getting in the way again! :)

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