Belay that . . . Huh? The translation of "belay that" is roughly "if you value your life, stop that and stop it now" the second less urgent definition is "put that off - forever". Having heard this anachronistic naval expression often as a child, "belay that" would make a very effective button label and/or explicit text for an error warning - especially for me and the six other people in the U.S. who know what it means. The nature of good UI design is to avoid the visual and textual equivalents of "belay that". As meaningful as an icon or expression may be to us personally, if it is not commonly understood by our users - it's a bust.

We all want to avoid feeling doubtful and/or perplexed - feelings freely elicited by bad design. You may have noticed, that most debit card machines fall in the "Bad UI" category - their usage plagued by inconsistent presentation, vague/contradictory labeling, hard to read screens, and culminating in the concurrent questions: am I done yet, and did I do it right? Using a debit card is a necessary, but not generally satisfying experience.

Common distractions from transactions include: where to slide the card - is it a top-slider, a side-slider, or bottom loader? Slide the card toward yourself, away from yourself, turn the card upside down and then slide to the left? Slide the card before the cashier is finished? Enter pin and sign, enter pin and don't sign. Cash back options - YES and CANCEL. Enter Key labeled Enter on the key and labeled YES and NO below the key. Enter Key is green. Enter key is blue. Enter key is red. Enter key is on the screen. Enter Key is on the keypad. Enter key is on the screen and the keypad. Enter key is at bottom right. Enter key is at the top left. Swipe Now message means swipe at your own risk, invariably you will: swipe too soon, too fast, or too slowly. Swipe multiple times and don't dare question how much money is actually being deducted from your account.

Ignore the cash back screen at your peril. Not hitting Yes to cash back will automatically make exiting from debit world more difficult. Hit cash back and then remember to remember to request your cash. And the icing on the cake is that you get to display all you confusion publicly, while the next victim in line is glaring at you and loudly bemoaning your obvious technical inability.

From the ridiculous to the sublime, the lowly toaster is often held up as the epitome of good design. Toasters are in general simple to operate and reliable in their results. And, toaster design has just gotten better, at least for me, the impatient operator. Several new toasters now come equipped with a Cancel button. My husband likes his toast coated in charcoal, I like mine over-lightly. Our toaster is perpetually set at burn to a crisp. I never remember this until I have already pushed the toasting lever down. In a panic, I generally try to force the lever back up so that I can rescue my toast from the char cycle. This forcing of the lever is not good for the toaster, and the lever generally resists my sudden manual override in an effort to protect itself.

As an impatient user, I will buy a new toaster just for the Cancel feature. The toaster designers have, with probably very little reengineering, solved a problem that has long troubled light toast lovers. I do have to question the name of the button though, Cancel toast? I know someone fought hard for Abort Toast, and that Jettison Toast must have been on the table too. But personally, I wish they had labeled the button "Belay that" . . . I would have known just what they meant.