You could think of it as previous and next. They cannot be swapped.
Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok
181–190 of 286 posts
Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok
#182This 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…
Back when I used to build model aircraft dioramas, a veteran told me "When you arrange vehicles in a diorama setting, always have them facing towards the left side of the board for maximum impact.". His reasoning was that most people's eyes move left to right when examining something - which mimics their eye movement when reading text (at least in Western societies. In R-L countries I guess the opposite would be true…
Toy cars in shops have the cars and trucks all facing right in the packaging. Maybe they've done some ab-testing to get this way. Maybe not.
Maybe putting his airplanes facing left made your veteran's models pop because they were inconsistent with other models.
Anyway, if you want to make people read the options on buttons, randomize the order each time the popup appears but always destructive buttons like "delete" red colours.
Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok
#183> The solution we are now experimenting it sounds like a bad idea: "Make it so much different and Factorio specific, that the way it is done in your specific system will not interfere with your muscle memory".
I actually kind of like the solution they found, but I'd still argue that this way of reasoning really is a bad idea.
If you remember your Kant - always act so that everyone could do what you do - this would be horrible.
UI is all about consistecy and while it's nice they don't want to interfere with the consistency of the rest of the UI, if every designer would use that excuse, we wouldn't have any consistency at all.
Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok
#184You could think of it as previous and next. They cannot be swapped.
For Mac/Linux, sure. But that's not what Windows users are used to, and therefore don't model as "previous/next".
Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok
#185On macOS I have turned on the setting that lets one tab through all controls (System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts → All controls). When a “Cancel OK” dialog appears, “OK” is the default choice (in blue) but Cancel is the highlighted one[1], presumably because it’s the first option. This is incredibly convenient because ↵ will activate “OK”, while pressing the space bar will activate “Cancel”. One gets used fast…
When you need to optimize the speed of going through dialog boxes, something is wrong with your UI, I think.
Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok
#186Countless times i've been victim of the "do you want to save?" dialog where the replies were |Yes|No|Cancel|. In some cases the brain knows it made a mistake, and whatever dialog comes, the reply should be the negative one. And with those options, the subconscious clicked No (the most destructive operation) before I knew what was happening. To me, the buttons should read |Save|Discard|Go back| in whatever order the c…
Factorio's Save implementation is one of the worst I've ever seen.
If you start a completely new game, the default name for a save game is the previous game you were playing. This means that you can very easily overwrite hundreds of hours of gametime by dabbling in multiplayer or a test map.
I reported this but it got closed by some jerk moderator as "working as intended" - looks like it got forgotten: https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=46646
It's still the behavior in the game.
Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok
#187This 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…
> 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. I think this is the right answer. Personally and anecdotally, I doubt it makes a noticeable difference which way they are, as long as they are that way everywhere. I will soon learn that "confirm/apply/proceed" is one way, and "back/cancel/revert" is the other way, whiche…
Agreed, however I think there's something crucial missing in there: Also try to be consistent with the platform you're developing for.
Like GP said:
> [...] which probably arose from the fact that I began designing on the Mac, so I was conditioned to Apple's "OK on the right" standard at an early age [...]
Your users most likely will have been conditioned, too. So, don't force them to adopt a different button layout just because "you decided otherwise". If you're developing for multiple platform, it might well be worth your time to ajust those options depending on the platform the application is running on (just like it's almost always better to use a native save/load dialog for files).
And, if you're arriving at that point, you might even consider including a configuration option for those poor souls who have to use the application on another platform at work than they do privately.
Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok
#188So why do Samsung android phones put the "back button" on the right contrary to the other android devices? In latin and germanic languages, left means back, cancel, undo, bad whereas right means continue, progress, right!
Because most people are right handed and their phones are so big its easier to tap back on the right than left. (My theory, no source)
Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok
#189Technically, they're both wrong. Button labels should be verbs. The Cancel - Open example from OS X is the right way to do a dialog box.
It's awkward sometimes. AWX: "Are you sure you want to cancel? Cancel/Proceed" e.g. Cancel cancelling / proceed to cancel. To me, that always seemed like a place where a simple "Yes/No" would be more appropriate.
Proceed seems to be the wrong verb here, as that dialog looks like it appeared after clicking a cancel button, and if I don't want to cancel I "return" to the previous screen where my data still is and don't "proceed" to somewhere.
Re: Ok-Cancel versus Cancel-Ok
#190Technically, they're both wrong. Button labels should be verbs. The Cancel - Open example from OS X is the right way to do a dialog box.
It's awkward sometimes. AWX: "Are you sure you want to cancel? Cancel/Proceed" e.g. Cancel cancelling / proceed to cancel. To me, that always seemed like a place where a simple "Yes/No" would be more appropriate.
I agree, but what's the use-case for such a dialog in the first place?