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Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok

factorio.com

61–70 of 286 posts

Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok

#61
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, precisely. The worst UI I've ever seen was: "Cancel this action?" "Yes" "Cancel" Seriously?!

If you get lucky, it has a window close button on the right top as a safe way out. If you're unlucky... better have that power cable in reach.

I have a feeling pulling the plug would cancel the action.

Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok

#62

HN folks will appreciate the entire Factorio blog. They are super open about the design of their game and it's full of micro-postmortems. https://www.factorio.com/blog/ Also, if you're reading this, you are in a demographic that is likely to absolutely love Factorio. Go buy it, it's 20 eur/usd, you won't regret it. Some call it "Programming: The Game".

> Some call it "Programming: The Game". This is actually why I haven't bought it (yet). When I have the urge to program something, I think I'd rather put that towards building something real than playing Factorio.

Sometime I think a game is too much like work, and it reflects poorly on the game. Too much grind, tedious...

Factorio for me is too much like work, except I think it's a fine game, I just already often spend my day making systems to put things on queues and take them off queues, trying to keep the queues from getting full or empty...

Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok

#63

This has been a debate for as long as I've been a UX designer (mid '90s), and probably much longer. Ultimately, the answer about this UX style is very much the same as a question about writing style—there's no objectively right answer, but you have to be consistent. For example, you can pick up any number of style books from Strunk & White to the Chicago Manual of Style and get different "right" answers about writing…

Even in film the convention is that if you're character is going back, standing in the way of another character moving the plot forward, or just feeling weak or uncertain, they should face the left. When was the last platformer you saw where you moved left to progress? The right hand side conventionally portrays certainty, strength, and progress in all manner of western arts.

Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok

#64
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you will regret it. That’s like saying “Try heroin! You’ll absolutely love it.” Not technically wrong... (Edit: I’m joking. It’s a great game.)

But it's funny because it's true! Factorio is INCREDIBLY addictive, because it stimulates that excellent feeling you get from successfully writing and refactoring beautiful code.

I actually organize my creations by thinking about hardware architecture, too. To me, Factorio is just a pretty graphical CPU.

Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok

#65
post #8

HN folks will appreciate the entire Factorio blog. They are super open about the design of their game and it's full of micro-postmortems. https://www.factorio.com/blog/ Also, if you're reading this, you are in a demographic that is likely to absolutely love Factorio. Go buy it, it's 20 eur/usd, you won't regret it. Some call it "Programming: The Game".

Oh, you will regret it. That’s like saying “Try heroin! You’ll absolutely love it.” Not technically wrong... (Edit: I’m joking. It’s a great game.)

yes, regret it you will. I've had it for a while and from time to time I see someone play it online and go "oh, I should go play that again".... just recently....

7pm: I think to myself, let's do some work on my side project... but first, lets play a little factorio

3am: FU#! :/

Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok

#66
post #17

We have a review software that has buttons "Wait"-"Approve" and then "Sign"-"decline". So on one screen the positive button is on the right but on the other it's on the left. I have declined tons of reviews just by clicking on the right button reflexively.

Is this intentional? Do they want you to be really sure?

I doubt it. There is no "are you sure?" on the decline button. So typically I decline something and wonder why two days later someone complains why have declined his review.

Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok

#67
post #63

This has been a debate for as long as I've been a UX designer (mid '90s), and probably much longer. Ultimately, the answer about this UX style is very much the same as a question about writing style—there's no objectively right answer, but you have to be consistent. For example, you can pick up any number of style books from Strunk & White to the Chicago Manual of Style and get different "right" answers about writing…

Even in film the convention is that if you're character is going back, standing in the way of another character moving the plot forward, or just feeling weak or uncertain, they should face the left. When was the last platformer you saw where you moved left to progress? The right hand side conventionally portrays certainty, strength, and progress in all manner of western arts.

Your post plus the context of Factorio brings about an interesting observation that in all of my Factorio maps, expansion/exploration happens rightwards and upwards unless constrained by geography.

Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ok" for a change (that's described in the body of the dialog's text) is... okay, I suppose. But it's better to mirror the action verb for your confirmation button, because users don't necessarily read the text you present them with. So, instead of this: Delete xyz.jpg? -------------------------- The file 'xyz.jpg' will be permanently deleted. -------------------------- [ OK ] [ Cancel ] You have: Delete xyz.jpg? ---…

Actually "mirror the action verb" surprises/confuses me even more than "OK" "Cancel", since the latter are standard and almost expected, whereas anything other than a positive/negative response feels unexpected. It's like the real-life equivalent of asking someone a yes/no question --- you're expecting a yes/no answer. In fact, I'd say this is even clearer, putting the question at the end and immediately following it…

> Actually "mirror the action verb" surprises/confuses me

To a certain extent, I would think this is the point of using this approach (at least for a "delete" action). I'd prefer the user to stop and think, "wait, what is this?" instead of just blindly clicking through.

Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok

#70

This has been a debate for as long as I've been a UX designer (mid '90s), and probably much longer. Ultimately, the answer about this UX style is very much the same as a question about writing style—there's no objectively right answer, but you have to be consistent. For example, you can pick up any number of style books from Strunk & White to the Chicago Manual of Style and get different "right" answers about writing…

> So the answer from this veteran UX designer would be: Use whichever placement your users are going to be the most familiar with, but whichever you choose, be 100% consistent with the choice you make. Not only that, but make the "OK" choice standout with a different color. If the "default" option is brighter than the rest, your eyes will most likely gravitate towards it first, regardless of the order of the buttons.

Additionally, if the OK option is something major and irreversible or destructive, make that different color be red, and change the OK to be what the operation is (Delete, Erase, etc.)
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