Undo

Added 6 Aug 2025

Reverse a prior action, absorbing the anxiety of mistakes and encouraging confident exploration.

Structure

Whether undo can be applied only once or successively.

Single-action undo: Reverses only the most recent action.
Multi-action undo: Allows reversing multiple actions sequentially.
Selective undo: Allows to pick a specific action from a history to undo, without affecting subsequent actions.
Regional undo: Enables undoing operations within specific regions or contexts
Branching models: Creates tree-like structures where actors can explore alternative paths

TODO:

a reverse path that returns the structure to its prior state, with a window in which the retraction is offered

Temporality — lets the actor reverse an action after the fact, loosening commitment over time

Change review — rejecting a proposed change is recovery moved before the commit
Regeneration — restores what a regeneration replaced
Transient feedback — the dismissal window doubles as the recovery window — transient feedback is the primary carrier for undo affordances
Wizard — Because a wizard isolates focus to one step at a time and hides the rest of the interface, users must be able to change earlier decisions without losing entered progress; non-destructive undo and safe backward navigation are fundamental requirements.

Approval gate — consent before the act and recovery after it are the two ends of one safeguard ladder
Inline confirmation — moves the safety net after the act instead of before it; prefer undo when the action reverses cleanly

Abort — related non-destructive exit; offer undo and restore affordances when state has been modified
Action consequences — the strongest severity reducer — recovery after the act removes the need for confirmation before it
Reconciliation — the version not picked is a removal; undo is its recovery
Saving — Reversibility in saved states
Status feedback — provides immediate feedback on the undo action
Command menu — can be used to access undo options
Activity log — displays a history of actions that can be undone

Settings — a recorded override is state undo can walk back, which is what makes exploratory configuration safe
Wizard — Because a wizard isolates focus to one step at a time and hides the rest of the interface, users must be able to change earlier decisions without losing entered progress; non-destructive undo and safe backward navigation are fundamental requirements.
Deletion — the data is gone; whether that holds is now a question of recovery — a completed deletion is exactly the state undo acts on
Editing in place — changes commit one at a time — the short gap between act and effect is what makes the result feel caused by the gesture — so there is no assembled set to review and no pending state to cancel from; taking something back happens after the fact