from Hacker News

Microsoft Edge swapped Cancel and Confirm on privacy dialog

by andreynering on 9/13/23, 12:07 AM with 17 comments

  • by hyperhello on 9/13/23, 1:32 AM

    They A/B tested and found that swapping the order got great engagement and click through? Later they’ll swap it again and it’ll have great click through again! A/B is a black box though, can’t tell why it worked.

  • by olig15 on 9/13/23, 7:42 AM

    This is a pretty bad take.

    Not only is the new (apparently, I don’t use Edge) order easier to dismiss with the ‘better’ option, but it also matches Microsoft’s own guidelines which are applied in most places in Windows: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/uxguide/win-...

  • by praash on 9/13/23, 1:14 PM

    To me, this UI style of "highlighting" an option signals that "this option does something significant". This is evident in most confirmation dialogs, as it should be.

    Most naggy popups seem to drive users into clicking that highlighted option, and I think this has trained me to consider the dull-coloured choices first.

    Microsoft's move intends to confuse users, at least by subverting the usual expectations around privacy nagging.

  • by r_hoods_ghost on 9/13/23, 6:10 AM

    He's complaining that the privacy preserving option is given more prominence. OK...

  • by iforgotpassword on 9/13/23, 5:30 AM

    Yeah no, every app and every website does this stuff differently, there is no consistency anyways. Who on earth reads a dialog and then doesn't read what the buttons say?

    And then criticising that they pre-select "no"? Guess they can't win either way...

  • by methou on 9/13/23, 8:05 AM

    This is not alone, I remember seeing a lot of these confusing dialogs with confusing descriptions and out of context buttons that makes me feel like I'm a 12 years old with reading disorder.

    There has to be and end to this, a new law or otherwise.

  • by naruhodo on 9/13/23, 2:07 AM

    To be fair to *shudder* Microsoft, all the nasty cookie dialogs I see on Firefox have the "Fuck it! Take all my privacy!" option on the right.

    It will be malicious when they swap it back the other way.

  • by DLA on 9/14/23, 1:50 AM

    One more example of Microsoft acting against the best interests of users which they do often (like making browser choice a pain, hiding settings they really don’t want users to find, etc.) How about work more fixing crappy UX or improving security? Asking for a friend.

  • by octacat on 9/13/23, 8:55 AM

    Actually, highlighting "No, Thanks" is good idea, it what an user should press.

  • by dartharva on 9/15/23, 11:03 AM

    But _No, thanks_ is the positive option among them...