The art of attracting the author's attention is a tricky issue. The way authors are alerted, prompted, or warned can influence their view of the tool and even their opinion of accessible authoring. Refer also to guideline 5 . Intrusive Alerts Intrusive alerts are informative messages that interrupt the editing process for the author. For example, intrusive alerts are often presented when an author's action could cause a loss of data.
Intrusive alerts allow problems to be brought to the author's attention immediately.
However, authors may resent the constant delays and forced actions. Many people prefer to finish expressing an idea before returning to edit its format. The following screenshot shows an example of an intrusive alert that might be displayed if the author fails to enter Alt-text at an image insetion prompt. Unintrusive Alerts Unintrusive alerts are alerts such as icons, underlines, and gentle sounds that can be presented to the author without necessitating immediate action. For example, in some word processors misspelled text is highlighted without forcing the author to make immediate corrections.