UI Baffler: Outlook Reminders

By Eric

Why is it that in the Outlook reminders dialog, the "Dismiss All" button is disabled if there are no reminder items selected?

Dismiss All disabled

Well clearly it is because that button is supposed to dismiss all of the selected reminders, right?

No, because if there is any selected reminder, clicking "Dismiss All" will dismiss all of the reminders.

Dismiss All disabled

I'm really curious as to how the developers arrived at that interaction.