Re: Yes/No/Cancel
"Better still would be to ban modal dialogs outright, and force designers to come up with a UI that doesn’t need them to interrupt you to ask stupid questions in the first place…"
I've used interfaces like that. They are horrible. Modality is useful if an action requires several things to be specified at once. Some parts of reality are like that, so you can't just live/design in denial about it. By entering a modal dialog you ensure that only one such complicated action is in-flight in the user's head at any given time. That's usually good to encourage. UIs that have loads of modeless toolbars or docked thingummies about the place are the alternative. Sometimes that works. Usually you end up with an interface like Gimp or Blender, where the novice user runs screaming from the room.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
