Glossary » forgiveness
forgiveness
a design principle that says people should be able to recover from their inevitable mistakes. Dialog boxes should have a Cancel button. Operations should be undoable. Long operations should allow a user to stop them in the middle.
The most forgiving design is one which helps people avoid making mistakes, e.g. with an interaction style that doesn’t permit inconsistent states. If an operation is not reversible, then an appropriate warning should be given before an irreversible action is committed to.
