User inteface question -- looking for a reference

[Bart Miller]

I'm looking for help on finding a reference on what (I think) is a well-known
user-interface design principle.  I'm posting this message to a couple of
groups because I'm not sure where to look.

The issue is about user-interfaces that ask "are you sure?" before they execute
a command.  Especially if an interface or tool ALWAYS asks "are you sure?" on
every command.  On these type of interfaces, users tend to type "yes" without
thinking -- even when they intended to say "no".

My question:  is there a reference (conf paper, journal article, or book)
that talks about this?  If you know of such a reference, please let me know
(e-mail would be best).  Thanks!
						--bart miller
						  uw-madison cs dept
						  bart at cs.wisc.edu