The right time for warning messages

29Aug07

I’m a huge fan of Bloglines for both desktop and mobile usage, and I generally find that it works really well.  But I came across one really annoying issue on the mobile interface.  If you’re scrolling through a feed and click “Unsubscribe” by accident, it removes that feed instantly.  No warning message, and no option to undo or retrieve the feed from your history. I had to go locate the feed again, subscribe, and move it back to the appropriate folder, which was pretty annoying. So here’s my advice: if choosing a particular option by accident is going to make the user really unhappy, and there’s no practical way to let them undo it, be sure to show a warning message first 🙂