(Archived) Inadvertent Loss of Data

[underthewronghat 0]

Having lost some important interview data recently, I was able to back-track and reproduce one of the methods for loss of data on my Android tablet - it's rather obvious, but it's also easy enough that I've done it twice.

If I make a new note, and simply forget to touch the upper left check-mark when I'm finished (I assume that's the save function?), before I close the app, a requester pops up which says,

 

"Discard?" (in non-intuitive friendly light blue, vice danger-indicating bold red)

"Your changes are not saved, are you sure you want to discard the changes?"  

Then there are two buttons: [Cancel] and [Ok].

 

If I accidentally hit [Ok], I lose all data entered in the new note.  The check mark is unlabeled, however, so my intuitive action is to close the note by closing the app. (like other android apps). These two problems make it easy for an inadvertent loss of data to occur.  The first time this happened, I was unable to find the "Save" function while flying in an airplane (and had to turn off the device), and the second time I accidentally just touched the wrong response on the warning popup when closing the app (forgot to hit the check-mark).

My four suggestions for a solution (in order of preference) are:

1, Closing the app auto-saves the data (delete is not an option while closing the app), or restated, there is no pop up warning when closing, and using the SAVE button (upper left check-mark?) is not required to save the data.
2. Change the Warning Popup options to "Your changes have not been saved, do you want to SAVE the changes?" with the appropriate [Cancel] and [Ok] buttons.  This way if you want to delete, you can cancel saving, and go back into the app to delete...  ...SAVE has to be the default action here...
3. Change the innocuous [check-mark] to a big red button which says, "Save or Die." Or the politically correct equivalent...

4. Maintain a history of deleted / changed content for each document which is accessible through one of the menus.

 

***Deleting content should _always_ require a deliberate initiating action (ie. using the actual delete function) from the user.***