Cancel - OK
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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.
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.
-
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
-
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.
-
jschell wrote:
Good try but no I don't buy it.
Agreed.
Jeremy Falcon
-
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.
-
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.
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!
-
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
-
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) -
Colin Mullikin wrote:
We have been consistently doing it this way for over a decade.
I get it, but I don't believe there is every a valid reason for continuing to do something wrong. I realize you got users to deal with that may even not care as much as devs do, but I'd still fix it.
Jeremy Falcon
I agree. But unfortunatly this is the ideal and not the reality in the world. I've seen many applications where the developers thought it good to make the Cancel button default, not providing hot keys, even providing wonderful names for there buttons like proceed etc. Although the reasoning behind it may be to force the user to read the screen, I think the rest of the argument should keep in mind that a user who is familiar with a system would like to rely on automatics for the obvious tasks, and have a consistent experience across different applications. Well, one can only hope... :^)
-
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
Well, you should have thought of that before you did such a piss poor design... ;)
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
-----
The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
-----
I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time -
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
I came to Windows from RISC OS, where OK was in the bottom right, two decades ago, and I still think that it's the correct layout. If MS thinks it's right for the order to be OK - Cancel, why don't they use Next - Prev too?
-
In my expert opinion :), the Cancel button should ALWAYS be on the right, and here's why... Your app undoubtedly has many dialogs, and not all of them have OK and Cancel. I have been writing enterprise apps going on 30 years. The set of dialogs I use contain some of these... - Yes & Cancel - Yes, No, Cancel. - Select & Cancel - Login & Cancel. - Save & Cancel. - Proceed & Cancel. - Connect & Cancel - Rotate, Align, Cancel - Ignore QA & Cancel ... and there are more. See the pattern? Cancel is ALWAYS last. Send your God this book[^]. It was written in book form by MS many moons ago, but the principals still apply. Book form is here[^] Then have him see this[^].
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
Kevin Marois wrote:
- Cancel & Yes
- Cancel, No, Yes.
- Cancel & Select
- Cancel & Login.
- Cancel & Save.
- Cancel & Proceed.
- Cancel & Connect
- Cancel, Rotate, Align
- Cancel & Ignore QAFTFY. ;)
-
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
-
I came to Windows from RISC OS, where OK was in the bottom right, two decades ago, and I still think that it's the correct layout. If MS thinks it's right for the order to be OK - Cancel, why don't they use Next - Prev too?
Way back, in the old days when MS and IBM were friends, was developed a standard called the Common User Access, CUA, giving the common guidelines for Windows, OS/2 and Motif user interfaces. The CUA was published as an IBM document, but was endorsed by MS (and I believe several other companies). Windows 3 was developed in close to 100% adherence to the CUA rules. The CUA stated clearly that normal completion of a dialog is done by clicking the button in the lower right corner. In other words, OK to the right. The first CUA rule (at least among the essential ones) were the location of the Help menu: CUA requires it to be pushed to the very right on the menu line. I don't remember when MS decided to move it together with the other pulldown menus; that could be in Win 3.11. We started out with consistency where you by instinct clicked the bottom right button to complete normally, to a transition period where an increaing fraction of the applications made you follow your instincts, swear, and redo the entire dialog, this time reading the button texts closely, to the current situation where everything is so inconsistent and free of rules that you cannot rely on instincts but must read all the buttons anyway. ("But OUR software is consistent" - sure, the good thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. Most customers buy software from several different vendors.) Whenever I make user interfaces, I follow the CUA rule of normal termination being the bottom right button. Nowadays, all user must read the button labels anyway, so this is as good a choice as any other. Or even better, since I can justify my choice by referring to a user interface standard document. (True enough: It was published more than 25 years ago, but it is far better than nothing).
-
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
The period in my life when I had my highest frequency of swearing loudly at my office desk was when we used an editor that at exit might display a warning (this was before the mouse was common, so you responded through the keyboard: "You have not saved the last modifications to the file. Do you want to save it before exiting? (Y/N)" Of course you would immediately hit the "Y" key. Then we switched to another editor that had very much of the same style user interface, but it would give the warning: "You have not saved the last modifications to the file. Do you really want to exit without saving? (Y/N)" Obviously, from old habit, you hit the "Y" key. Then you would swear loudly and be grumpy for the rest of the day. Moral: Don't play games with the user's old habits.