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Why ‘Ok’ Buttons in Dialog Boxes Work Best on the Right

uxmovement.com

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Re: Why ‘Ok’ Buttons in Dialog Boxes Work Best on the Right

#51

Post by Tooluka »

Picture 1, "Less Visual Fixation": I think it is wrong, if I'm processing simple (or repeating) stack of windows I do not read all labels (at least after a few similar tasks), I see OK button and I click it.

Picture 3, "Maps to the expected button functions" This is also wrong, there are specific labels for actions on the picture - Back/Next, Backward/Forward, Return/Continue.

Picture 4, "Gives users a more efficient task flow" I agree with eyesight map (left to right, up to down) and this is precisely why OK should be on the left side - so we don't need to read further.

I confess that I'm Windows biased a little. But the author is biased just the same, only he is using Mac :) .

Re: Why ‘Ok’ Buttons in Dialog Boxes Work Best on the Right

#52

Post by ikken »

Come on guys, claims with no backing data?

The author writes "user testing is probably your best bet. But if you’re a knowledgeable and experienced designer who can think about problems from the user’s perspective, then you can solve this problem through design analysis."

This is so wrong. Actually design analysis can turn out to be completely wrong. You need to test it, get some numbers, and then you can claim that conclusions of your analysis are correct. Right now it's just a claim that may or may not hold.

Re: Why ‘Ok’ Buttons in Dialog Boxes Work Best on the Right

#54

Post by SimHacker »

dcminter wrote: post #11

"...if you’re a knowledgeable and experienced designer ... then you can solve this problem through design analysis [as opposed to user testing]" But if you're an empirical scientist you will use user testing to confirm or deny your hypothesis rather than assuming your rationalisations hold in the real world.

That statement in the article is just wrong. A knowledgeable and experienced designer should be an experienced scientist who uses user testing to confirm rationalizations.

Re: Why ‘Ok’ Buttons in Dialog Boxes Work Best on the Right

#55

Post by SimHacker »

twelvechairs wrote: post #23
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Most of the article was based on some sort of unjustified "innate" knowledge of how users behave. He dismisses platform consistency as being unscientific and then goes on to present his own equally unscientific arguments for ignoring the convention. In the face of these two alternatives, I'd choose platform consistency every single time.

Designers work like this for good reason. Yes it reads like unproven pseudo-science, and it is, but there is reason behind this. When you work with thousands of concepts like this every day you can't empirically test them all across all cultures and environments (it would take forever and a day!) - you just develop a thought of what makes sense for you and have a basic think about why that might be so. This may not h…

Even if you don't actually do any empirical tests, a good user experience designer should at least IMPLEMENT their ideas and try them out first hand themselves before declaring them the best for a particular situation. That's why it's sad that so few user experience designers have any competency in actually implementing their designs. Many of them (the bad ones) don't even understand what the technology is capable of, let alone know how to program.

Re: Why ‘Ok’ Buttons in Dialog Boxes Work Best on the Right

#56

Post by SimHacker »

nathan_long wrote: post #32
quesera wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"OK" can mean: "ok yes you've changed my mind, I agree, bad idea". "Cancel" never means: "cancel and proceed".

"Do you really want to cancel?" Cancel/OK

Double clicking a "No" button should mean yes, of course.

Re: Why ‘Ok’ Buttons in Dialog Boxes Work Best on the Right

#57

Post by lloeki »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #39
unconed wrote: post #24

Ok and Cancel are the wrong button labels anyway. The Apple HIG say that buttons should be labeled with verbs that signify the action taken. For example, Cancel/No/Yes becomes "Don't Quit" "Don't Save" "Save". Much more intuitive, and it gives additional reason to put the positive button last: users should be encouraged to read all the options available before deciding—and can get the gist by reading just the buttons…

I was on the phone troubleshooting a webcam problem with my dad for an hour before he even mentioned the popup he had been clicking through (the one that told us why it wasn't working). If you are expecting users to read your error messages, you're doing it wrong.

> If you are expecting users to read your error messages, you're doing it wrong.

Hence it's even more important to call for action, not status in the button. If a button reads 'save' it has a much higher chance of being read than then long text before 'Ok'

Re: Why ‘Ok’ Buttons in Dialog Boxes Work Best on the Right

#58

Post by city41 »

I disagree that OK/cancel are backwards. Placing OK on the left makes it a more deliberate choice. Thus the system can be more confident the user consciously chose OK, as it takes a smidge more effort to get there. OK/Cancel dialogs are (unfortunately) very common, it's very easy for users to become numb to them and just click whatever it takes for them to go away.

For similar reasons, Mac OS Classic placed the trash can in the lower right corner of the screen. If you had dragged something that far, there was nothing else you could possibly be shooting for. Therefore making the system more confident you were actually dragging that file to the trash. Which is one reason MacOS never asked "are you sure you want to delete that?" like Windows's recycle bin does by default.

Another similar example: MacOS classic placed the close button of Windows on the opposite side, on its own. Again, if you are clicking there, the system is more confident that closing the window is what you're really after. It's interesting to note that OSX did away with many of these well thought out devices.

Re: Why ‘Ok’ Buttons in Dialog Boxes Work Best on the Right

#60

Post by smashing »

Swizec wrote: post #17
51Cards wrote: post #8

I still can't stand this in Android 4.0 Yes/No, OK/Cancel, Open/Close, On/Off, Come/Go, Stay/Leave, Buy/Sell, Gas/Brake, Thanks/No Thanks... In English anyhow we are used to Positive option first, Negative option second... it's how our language flows and thus how we think. We read Left to Right... we expect the positive option on the Left, i.e. first, and the negative option on the Right, second. Just how I view it a…

In most of the world, though, it's Brake/Gas. And I personally prefer Cancel/OK because I usually want to click OK and my right thumb happens to be on the right side of the screen.

The boolean closest to the question should be affirmative for positive process flow.
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