Confirm an action

[govuk-design-system]

What

Ask users to confirm that they want to perform a serious or irreversible action. For example delete an account or cancel an application.

Why

Anything else

Not yet available.

[joelanman]

In general, it's more user-friendly to allow the user to undo an action:

http://alistapart.com/article/neveruseawarning

However in government there may be cases where Undo is practically impossible - for example submitting your final tax returns.

[tameemsafi]

@joelanman Would it not be possible to use undo as the default behaviour instead of asking the user to confirm their action. For cases where undo is not possible you can make it clear that it is not reversible and ask the user to enter a message or their password to confirm. This is how github works when you try and delete a repo and I think it works very well.

[dashouse]

GOV.UK Publishing platform have a "destructive" button variant

https://govuk-publishing-components.herokuapp.com/component-guide/button/destructive_button

[stevenaproctor]

We have something like this in our add to a list pattern.

To avoid many buttons and other problems, we take people to a separate screen that asks a normal yes-no question.

Once deleted, it is deleted. There is no undo.

[dankmitchell]

GOV.UK Notify have this pattern -

[edwardhorsford]

Sharing two examples from the service I work on: