Cannot be Undone (double negatives on iphone)

by Richard Pak on June 8, 2009 · 3 comments

in cognition/memory, design, humor, mobile, usability

I just saw this image from Apple’s introduction of the new iPhone:

wwdc2009-535

From Gizmodo

Notice the wording:  I understand that this action cannot be undone or cancelled [ed: British spelling, huh].

Does that mean it can be done?  Not a huge deal but the double negative slowed me down for a second.  Not a place where there should be any confusion!  Off-topic, I just got a Palm Pre this weekend and love it!

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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Kim Wolfinbarger June 9, 2009 at 9:27 pm

Interesting. This warning has appeared in Mac OS for years, and I have never heard anyone remark on it. Since “Undo” is a command on many Mac applications, the statement “This cannot be undone” has always seemed straightforward to me. I’d be interested to know if others have been confused by it.

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2 Richard Pak June 10, 2009 at 6:26 am

Yes, and humorously, after I posted this I started seeing those words EVERYWHERE (recently in Firefox). Until you mentioned it, I didn’t connect “undone” to the Undo command but that makes sense. Before I posted this item I did some cursory Googling and found this professional photographer who also had a big problem with this particular wording in Adobe Lightroom. I think he best stated my beef with the wording:

Many of Lightroom’s pop-up panels are really ugly — I don’t mean just aesthetically, though they are, but I mean in terms of usability and common sense.

For instance, at least one, I forget which, uses a confusing double-negative, stating that if you do a certain change it will be “not undoable.”

Now, let’s see, what does that mean? If a change is “undoable,” does that mean it cannot be done? So then not undoable would mean it is doable. Or does “undoable” mean that once a change is done, it can be undone?

OK, if undoable means that, i.e, that a change can be undone, then “not undoable” means that a change cannot be undone — IN PLAIN ENGLISH, IT’S “PERMANENT.”

Although some people will get it immediately, the double-negative “not undoable” is so massively computer-geeky as to be unacceptable in a consumer application.

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3 nothingelseis October 19, 2009 at 12:14 pm

Never had a problem with the wording. In fact I quite like it. Shakespeare innit.

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