Feedback

Always provide feedback for a user’s actions. Good feedback helps confirm that the interface is responding to input and communicates details that distinguish the nature of the action. Effective feedback is timely and is presented as close to the point of the user’s interaction as possible. Even when the interface is processing a particular task, provide the user with

information about the state of the process and how to cancel the process if that is an option. Nothing is more disconcerting to users than a “dead” screen that is unresponsive to input. A typical user will tolerate only a few seconds of an unresponsive interface. It is equally important that the type of feedback you use be appropriate to the task. You can communicate simple information through button changes or a status bar message; for more complex feedback, you may need to display a progress control or message box.