Cancel - OK
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For several months now, one of our testers has been pushing to get the OK and Cancel buttons switched in every single dialog in our application (roughly 200 dialogs). His only reasoning for this is that the way we do it (OK in bottom right corner, Cancel to the left of it) is the opposite of what Microsoft does throughout Windows(Cancel in bottom right corner, OK to the left of it). That is his one and only reason. He fails to acknowledge that switching it will annoy the hell out of every single person that uses our software (thousands of people). The next time he brings it up I might punch him in the face. :mad:
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
What kind of weird design decision was it to have it the opposite way round to, probably, 99% of every other application out there?
.-. |o,o| ,| \_\\=/\_ .-""-. ||/\_/\_\\\_\\ /\[\] \_ \_\\ |\_/|(\_)|\\\\ \_|\_o\_LII|\_ \\.\_./// / | ==== | \\ |\\\_/|"\` |\_| ==== |\_| |\_|\_| ||" || || |-|-| ||LI o || |\_|\_| ||'----'|| /\_/ \\\_\\ /\_\_| |\_\_\\ -
For several months now, one of our testers has been pushing to get the OK and Cancel buttons switched in every single dialog in our application (roughly 200 dialogs). His only reasoning for this is that the way we do it (OK in bottom right corner, Cancel to the left of it) is the opposite of what Microsoft does throughout Windows(Cancel in bottom right corner, OK to the left of it). That is his one and only reason. He fails to acknowledge that switching it will annoy the hell out of every single person that uses our software (thousands of people). The next time he brings it up I might punch him in the face. :mad:
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
You're not getting much joy from this one are you! I'm afraid I disagree with your stand on this one as well, standards and consistency are what make a user experience easy. Having said that I can sympathise with you when YOUR standard pre-dates Microsofts latest set of decisions. I still use a DAL that pre dates Entity Framework by a decade :sigh:
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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Quote:
I've studied UI, and the whole reasoning behind doing something like Cancel | OK is completely invalidated by never changing its order.
Really? You've "studied UI"?? Add to your studies that many if not most of these OK/Cancel buttons respond to Enter for OK and Escape for Cancel. Man does not compute by mouse alone, and neither should a UI expert. Talk about ivory towers...I've seen what you suggest in actual implementation for truly critical application paths, and it has its place there, but for general use in all applications your user base would rise up in arms and depose you for a less educated but more practical developer. BTW, as part of my Master's Degree in Computer Science, I took the User Interface Seminar, so I'm familiar with the principles you expose. Many of them fail miserably in general practice because they interfere with getting things done as quickly as humanly posssible for the least cost, which are principles from another discipline entirely called BUSINESS.
"Seize the day" - Horace "It's not what he doesn't know that scares me; it's what he knows for sure that just ain't so!" - Will Rogers, said by him about Herbert Hoover
cpkilekofp wrote:
I've seen what you suggest in actual implementation for truly critical application paths, and it has its place there, but for general use in all applications your user base would rise up in arms and depose you for a less educated but more practical developer.
If you're gonna argue, at least attempt to address the point I was making. You ain't. Thus, arguing with yourself you are.
cpkilekofp wrote:
BTW, as part of my Master's Degree in Computer Science, I took the User Interface Seminar, so I'm familiar with the principles you expose. Many of them fail miserably in general practice because they interfere with getting things done as quickly as humanly posssible for the least cost, which are principles from another discipline entirely called BUSINESS.
Nice generic references there with no solidity. Btw, as part of my real life BUSINESS experience making multi-million dollar software instead of some intangible academia references where it's impossible to have 1,000s of users for your software, I disagree. Please, continue spewing more generic fluff that sounds religious. Kids these days.
Jeremy Falcon
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Colin Mullikin wrote:
That is his one and only reason.
And it's a valid reason.
Colin Mullikin wrote:
He fails to acknowledge that switching it will annoy the hell out of every single person that uses our software (thousands of people).
It probably annoyed them when y'all did it backwards to start with. Can always annoy them again. I've studied UI, and the whole reasoning behind doing something like
Cancel | OKis completely invalidated by never changing its order. In fact, to be consistent with the premise of it, you should change it randomly (ie to force users to read the message). Otherwise it just shows a complete lack of disregard for standards and poor UI design.Jeremy Falcon
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
Cancel | OK
Thanks Jeremy!! I just finally understand what this 'OK | Cancel' order is about, after all those years! :-D
My programming get away... The Blog... DirectX for WinRT/C# since 2013! Taking over the world since 1371!
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Colin Mullikin wrote:
Here is an article that better explains my reasoning: Clickety[^]
I see the point you were trying to make now. Keep in mind that only really applies to when learning the software. All of what we're talking about does of course. Anyway... Here's the thing the article does not account for, platform consistency. The whole visual fixation thing only really applies to when the user is first learning the software and also assuming your app is the only one one the planet for the OS installed, which it's not. The eyes and brain will make shortcuts depending on, you guess it, consistency as the user gets used to the computer. In Windows I just know which button is which without even looking for that very reason. Now, here's my take on it in regards to what the guy was trying to say about workflow. Considering the OK button is the button that's used the most, and meant to confirm the whole intent of the dialog even existing in the first place, it should be the focal point of a dialog's action buttons, that's why it's the default with the thick border. The user does not have to worry about Cancel unless something went wrong, which the majority of the time shouldn't happen. Cancel is the bastard stepchild nobody loves. Boo hoo for Cancel, but get out the way because we have work to do. So in regards to workflow only, which the article speaks of,
text > Ok > donemakes more since thantext > Cancel > Ok > donewhen considering the purpose of what the button is even there for. Consistency man. Who cares about what what some guy wrote on his blog.Jeremy Falcon
No way the "OK" button should always be the default button that gets an Enter/Return as a click ! Which is the clicked-if-enter/return should depend on context, where context includes the application, the particular circumstances/meaning of a specific dialog, whether or not "undo" is available, etc.
“I speak in a poem of the ancient food of heroes: humiliation, unhappiness, discord. Those things are given to us to transform, so that we may make from the miserable circumstances of our lives things that are eternal, or aspire to be so.” Jorge Luis Borges
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This particular tester seems to think that he is a God among men when it comes to interfaces... X|
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
Colin Mullikin wrote:
This particular tester seems to think that he is a iGod among men when it comes to interfaces...
FTFY. :-D
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
Colin Mullikin wrote:
God among men
I think I worked with the same guy. The guy I used to work with would submit bug reports with really detailed information such as "The button text is wrong". Just figuring that we would know which button he was talking about and what text... :confused:
Easy, close the ticket with the comment "unable to locate 'The' button". :-D
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
For several months now, one of our testers has been pushing to get the OK and Cancel buttons switched in every single dialog in our application (roughly 200 dialogs). His only reasoning for this is that the way we do it (OK in bottom right corner, Cancel to the left of it) is the opposite of what Microsoft does throughout Windows(Cancel in bottom right corner, OK to the left of it). That is his one and only reason. He fails to acknowledge that switching it will annoy the hell out of every single person that uses our software (thousands of people). The next time he brings it up I might punch him in the face. :mad:
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
Colin Mullikin wrote:
(OK in bottom right corner, Cancel to the left of it)
Which is the sane way to do it. When I first started using Windows in the 3.1 days, I kept clicking on the the Cancel button by accident because that intuitively seemed to be the most logical place for "continue on to the next dialog." I've always that that the way Microsoft decided to do it was bassackwards. And no, I don't believe Microsoft "studied" the problem or knows anything more about good UI design than I do. Just look at W8 for proof.
Colin Mullikin wrote:
The next time he brings it up I might punch him in the face.
Nah, swat him on the butt and ask him if you broke his nose. Obviously he's got his head where his arse is, just like his idea for where the OK and Cancel buttons should be. Marc
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No way the "OK" button should always be the default button that gets an Enter/Return as a click ! Which is the clicked-if-enter/return should depend on context, where context includes the application, the particular circumstances/meaning of a specific dialog, whether or not "undo" is available, etc.
“I speak in a poem of the ancient food of heroes: humiliation, unhappiness, discord. Those things are given to us to transform, so that we may make from the miserable circumstances of our lives things that are eternal, or aspire to be so.” Jorge Luis Borges
BillWoodruff wrote:
No way the "OK" button should always be the default button that gets an Enter/Return as a click !
I actually agree with you on that. Realistically though it is more than times than not.
Jeremy Falcon
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While I would love for this to be an option, it would require some work. We don't really have an ancestor form with the OK and Cancel that all other forms inherit from. If we did, it would be a nice easy switch, but as it is, the placement of the OK and Cancel buttons has to be switched in roughly 200 forms. We could potentially add a bit of code into each form that would dynamically change the position as you suggest, but I'm not sure it would be worth the work. Also, it would just spawn a new debate of what should be the default setting: the new way or the old way...
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
It should be relatively easy to make a function that would to that automatically and just ensure that the function is called when the dialog is displayed. If your code is object oriented, then you might essentially use a base dialog/form that will do it automatically and just update existing form to derive from that class instead of the original one. This would really the best option and if the application is installed for the first time, it could use the new order by default and otherwise use the old order. That way everyone is happy and the developer has some chalenge...
Philippe Mori
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For several months now, one of our testers has been pushing to get the OK and Cancel buttons switched in every single dialog in our application (roughly 200 dialogs). His only reasoning for this is that the way we do it (OK in bottom right corner, Cancel to the left of it) is the opposite of what Microsoft does throughout Windows(Cancel in bottom right corner, OK to the left of it). That is his one and only reason. He fails to acknowledge that switching it will annoy the hell out of every single person that uses our software (thousands of people). The next time he brings it up I might punch him in the face. :mad:
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
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Colin Mullikin wrote:
That is his one and only reason.
And it's a valid reason.
Colin Mullikin wrote:
He fails to acknowledge that switching it will annoy the hell out of every single person that uses our software (thousands of people).
It probably annoyed them when y'all did it backwards to start with. Can always annoy them again. I've studied UI, and the whole reasoning behind doing something like
Cancel | OKis completely invalidated by never changing its order. In fact, to be consistent with the premise of it, you should change it randomly (ie to force users to read the message). Otherwise it just shows a complete lack of disregard for standards and poor UI design.Jeremy Falcon
:thumbsup:
Will Rogers never met me.
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For several months now, one of our testers has been pushing to get the OK and Cancel buttons switched in every single dialog in our application (roughly 200 dialogs). His only reasoning for this is that the way we do it (OK in bottom right corner, Cancel to the left of it) is the opposite of what Microsoft does throughout Windows(Cancel in bottom right corner, OK to the left of it). That is his one and only reason. He fails to acknowledge that switching it will annoy the hell out of every single person that uses our software (thousands of people). The next time he brings it up I might punch him in the face. :mad:
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
Simple solution is to have a OkayCancelButtons composite control that you can use a style setting to choose which way round they appear. Default is Cancel/Okay and QA mode is Okay/Cancel
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For several months now, one of our testers has been pushing to get the OK and Cancel buttons switched in every single dialog in our application (roughly 200 dialogs). His only reasoning for this is that the way we do it (OK in bottom right corner, Cancel to the left of it) is the opposite of what Microsoft does throughout Windows(Cancel in bottom right corner, OK to the left of it). That is his one and only reason. He fails to acknowledge that switching it will annoy the hell out of every single person that uses our software (thousands of people). The next time he brings it up I might punch him in the face. :mad:
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
Doing this is entirely situational, switching the OK/Cancel buttons on a few dialogue boxes now and then so that the end user actually has to pay attention as to what they are doing rather than just clicking OK on everything while being a zoned out drone. Alternately you can randomise the OK/Cancel button so that on some dialogue boxes they are switched and on others not, but when the program is used a second time, the OK/Cancel buttons may be in the reverse order. But if you don't mind your users being zoned out drones then there is no legitimate reason to switch them.
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jschell wrote:
Good try but no I don't buy it.
Agreed.
Jeremy Falcon
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Quote:
what Microsoft does throughout Windows(Cancel in bottom right corner, OK to the left of it).
Is just plain wrong. The OK or "moving forward" button should be at the bottom right. The Cancel or "give up and go back" button should be to the left of it similar in action and placement to Forward and Back buttons on browsers - except they are at the top.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
It is just plain wrong. The dialog is shown for breaking the sequence, not for making it flow.
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For several months now, one of our testers has been pushing to get the OK and Cancel buttons switched in every single dialog in our application (roughly 200 dialogs). His only reasoning for this is that the way we do it (OK in bottom right corner, Cancel to the left of it) is the opposite of what Microsoft does throughout Windows(Cancel in bottom right corner, OK to the left of it). That is his one and only reason. He fails to acknowledge that switching it will annoy the hell out of every single person that uses our software (thousands of people). The next time he brings it up I might punch him in the face. :mad:
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
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Colin Mullikin wrote:
That is his one and only reason.
And it's a valid reason.
Colin Mullikin wrote:
He fails to acknowledge that switching it will annoy the hell out of every single person that uses our software (thousands of people).
It probably annoyed them when y'all did it backwards to start with. Can always annoy them again. I've studied UI, and the whole reasoning behind doing something like
Cancel | OKis completely invalidated by never changing its order. In fact, to be consistent with the premise of it, you should change it randomly (ie to force users to read the message). Otherwise it just shows a complete lack of disregard for standards and poor UI design.Jeremy Falcon
WHS!
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For several months now, one of our testers has been pushing to get the OK and Cancel buttons switched in every single dialog in our application (roughly 200 dialogs). His only reasoning for this is that the way we do it (OK in bottom right corner, Cancel to the left of it) is the opposite of what Microsoft does throughout Windows(Cancel in bottom right corner, OK to the left of it). That is his one and only reason. He fails to acknowledge that switching it will annoy the hell out of every single person that uses our software (thousands of people). The next time he brings it up I might punch him in the face. :mad:
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
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For several months now, one of our testers has been pushing to get the OK and Cancel buttons switched in every single dialog in our application (roughly 200 dialogs). His only reasoning for this is that the way we do it (OK in bottom right corner, Cancel to the left of it) is the opposite of what Microsoft does throughout Windows(Cancel in bottom right corner, OK to the left of it). That is his one and only reason. He fails to acknowledge that switching it will annoy the hell out of every single person that uses our software (thousands of people). The next time he brings it up I might punch him in the face. :mad:
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
Colin Mullikin wrote:
That is his one and only reason
Unfortunately it is a good reason. One thing I learned is that users complain a lot, but very often they adapt within a few hours of the rollout. Those that can't adapt are those that couldn't work with it in the first place. Besides 200 dialogs is not thát much. Yes it is a bloody annoying and tedious job. it will keep you busy for the better part of the day, but that's about it. But I can imagine it's not much fun to be told to do something when you did it differently for so long.
V.
(MQOTD rules and previous solutions)
