I was sent a link to a document the other day and got faced with this message when the page loaded. It effectively says “You’re not on the list, but you can come in anyway”.

Problem is, it’s not really clear a) why I would care that I’m not on the list and b) who actually is on that list. It just creates a barrier to me accessing the document, because I have to sit and read a message first.

Also, the design is the same as what MS uses if I cannot access the link (if I don’t actually have view/edit permissions on the file). So it’s not a consistent piece of UI. Some ideas:

1. Remove the warning entirely, because the info isn’t very useful.
2. Display the info in a different way by using a check icon for YES if I can proceed, and an error icon for NO if I can’t.
3. If I’m able to access the document, but I’m not on the list, allow me access to the document and display the info as a banner at the top of the open document, so it doesn’t interrupt my workflow.

Not sure why MS isn’t doing any of the above – I think any of them would be a better solution. I’ll see if I can trigger any other warnings that use the same window, to see if it’s a common piece of functionality or if they’ve just thrown it together.

Post photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash