RE: Avoiding 'Unsafe Removal of Device' Dialog on Wi- n2K

Ok as far as it goes, but this is a very PC-centric view. Servers and other
non-personal systems do not in general benefit much from visual clue based
management interfaces. Neither popup dialogs or task bar status lights are
of much use on an embedded system or a locked closet remote managed system.

Mark Roddy
xxxxx@hollistech.com
www.hollistech.com
603 321 1032
WindowsNT Windows 2000 Consulting Services

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas “Rick” Tewell [mailto:rick@1394.com]
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 11:51 AM
To: NT Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] RE: Avoiding ‘Unsafe Removal of Device’ Dialog on Win2K

I’m not sure I totally agree with Microsoft’s thinking. Another way of
wording this is “Because user’s find it annoying to be informed of data
loss, we have stopped informing them”. From a behavioral economics
viewpoint, perhaps you should cause a soft BSOD on unsafe device removal,
my guess is user behavior would change very effectively.

One other thought would be an indicator on the task bar that changes from
red to green whenever the device of interest can be safely removed. Although
this could become visually cumbersome should a large number of devices need
such an indicator a good UI designer could work figure it out. It would be
like having a nice indicator light in your “sound proof” car that tells you
that your brakes are worn…(to contiune your analogy). I think that visual
GUI feedback on the task bar is the most “user friendly” way to solve a
thorny problem like unexpected device removal. If the user ignores the
“idiot light” then…

Thomas “Rick” Tewell
Ligos Corporation


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