I like to put television shows and movies that I know and love on as background noise while I work. While it seems it may be a distraction, it help me focus. So I keep numerous programs, at-the-ready, on my Cable Service Providers’ DVR for convenience. My staple of I Love Lucy episodes and Big Trouble in Little China is queued and ready to create the “white noise” I need to concentrate on development.

While I wont mention my specific provider, I keep running into a UI that has me pulling my hair out with anxiety. This certainly cannot be the experience anyone would want for their end users? After a program has completed playback, the screen defaults to a user menu of button options that reads from left-to-right, top-down; YES - Delete, NO - Save.

Yes, Delete

Without mentioning the relevance of the intuitive reactions to false positive affirmations and a human inclination to specific color palettes (I will refer back to a similar discussion at Stack Exchange), let’s focus on the default position of “YES-DELETE”.

I’m a simple man, I get impatient as easily as then next person, and the load time between screens may cause an inadvertent click every once in a while. Oh how I miss the “Ricky Thinks He’s Going Bald” episode. Where was the Confirm Delete???

I Love Lucy

Better yet, WHY not default to the SAVE operation?
I believe there are implications, that the user has watched the saved program, therefore, has completed the necessity to keep it on the DVR. Or, maybe the storage of data is costly and taxing towards the overall infrastructure, so the provider is gently “encouraging” deletion?

I would be interested to hear opinions.

What I do know, is if I “accidentally” delete a commercial free copy of Jack Burton one liners, I may have to find an alternate service provider.

Big Trouble in Little China