376040 - "resent" misused in POSTDATA confirmation dialog

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: DOM: Navigation, defect)

Description

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

Bug 112848 replaced the horrible POSTDATA confirmation dialog with better wording, but I got that wording slightly wrong, since I wrote "resent" instead of "re-sent" (see attached)

So I went and re-worded it again:

"To display this page, %s must send information that will repeat any action (such as a search or order confirmation) that was performed earlier."

I think that reads a little easier. People should feel free to disagree.

Comment 1

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

Attachment: current POSTDATA confirmation dialog

Comment 2

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

How about s/any/whatever/ and maybe toss in "in this tab/window" at the end?  I don't really like it, but we do want to make it clear that whatever it was we did in this browsing context is what we'll redo...

Or we could do s/resent/resented/ and be done with it.  ;)

Comment 3

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

Hm. I hate this bug. Boris, I used "the" instead of "whatever" since it got across what you were trying to say (it's a definite article, not an indefinite one). I'm not sure we need the specification of the tab/window, though, since the user will closely associate the action they've taken with this dialog.

What I *am* wondering, though, is whether from the user's perspective, are we resending information, or repeating an action? 

If the mental model is re-taking an action:

"To reload this page, %s must repeat the action (such as a search or order submission) that was performed earlier.

        (( Repeat action ))   ( Cancel )

"

Or if we do think that the mental model is resending information:

"In reload this page, %s must send information which will repeat the action (such as a search or order submission) that was performed earlier.

        (( Send information ))   ( Cancel )

"

Bah. I'm liking resentenated. ;)

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Hmmm... good point.  There's no reason not to resend information, really.  The reason we're asking the user anything at all is because we're going to repeat the server-side action triggered by the POST.  So that's what we should be asking the user about.  Maybe:

"To reload this page, %s must repeat the action (such as a search or order
submission) that resulted in this page.

        (( Repeat action ))   ( Cancel )
"

Hrmph.  I don't like "resulted" that much either....

Comment 5

[Jesse Ruderman]

I like the idea of using "Repeat action" as the button label.

Isn't this dialog going to turn into an error page in bug 160144?

Comment 6

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

I like the "Repeat action" label idea too. But imo the current wording with "This will repeat the action..." sounds better than "Firefox will repeat the action...". Who/what actually does the repeating is in reality unclear, so passive sense is quite suitable.

Comment 7

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Attachment: Same dialog in IE7

Comment 8

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Attachment: Same dialog in OmniWeb 5

Comment 9

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Attachment: Same dialog in Safari 2

Comment 10

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

I was curious how other browsers worded this dialog, see the above three attachments.  Opera and Shiira both avoid the dialog entirely and simply resend the information.

I like how we are framing this in terms of actions, but I think we should take into consideration the user's overall goals.

Repeat Action -> The user did something mundane, like a search or a log in

Cancel -> The user did something that is not easy to undo, like a large financial transaction.

While the new proposal by Beltzner does a great job of explaining what will happen in simple language, it doesn't explain to the user why they should care, or directly help them make a choice.  How about:

"To reload this page, %s must repeat the action (such as a order submission or  search) you did to display this page. If you just placed an order or completed a financial transaction, you may not want to repeat the action.

        (( Repeat action ))   ( Cancel )"

Comment 11

[Worcester12345]

How about "You are requesting the server to process another transaction. Would you like to proceed?"?

Comment 12

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

After reading through this again I have to say the IE7 dialog (attachment 260513 [details]) text is not all that bad. Partly based on that, how about:

To display the web page again, %s needs to resend the information you've previously submitted. If you were making a purchase, click cancel to avoid a duplicate transaction.

    (( Resend ))   ( Cancel )


I also think the wording from comment 0 would be quite ok.

Comment 13

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Beltzner, any decision?

Comment 14

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

->FIXED by the checkin for bug 392407. (Wording from comment 0.)