[IxDA Discuss] Label alignment left or right?/Button alignment

[Jack Moffett]

On Apr 2, 2007, at 10:02 AM, Cagwin, Virginia wrote:

> On a similar topic, what about buttons? Apple guidelines say to right
> align the function that is mostly used (unless it is going to cause  
> the
> user to lose all their work), but on Windows it's the opposite. Has
> anyone read or conducted a study that proves that buttons should be
> "Cancel | Save" or "Save| Cancel"?


This is from a short paper I wrote for a customer several years ago.  
They wanted an explanation as to why the web app UI I had designed  
did not look exactly like a Windows desktop application.

“Cancel“ / “Okay” Button Placement
There has been a long-standing debate about the placement of these  
buttons. You can see a summary of one such argument here: http:// 
mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2002-June/msg00009.html It  
basically comes down to two differing philosophies. One philosophy is  
that because we read from left to right, top to bottom, buttons  
should be placed left to right in order of importance, importance  
being how likely a button will be used. Following this rule, the  
“Okay” button would be placed to the left of the “Cancel” button. The  
second philosophy says that because we read from left to right, top  
to bottom, “left” is understood as being “back” and “right” is  
understood as being “forward.” This is why the web browser “back” and  
“forward” buttons have arrows pointing left and right respectively.  
As “Cancel” is a “back” action and “okay” is a “forward” action, the  
“okay” button should be to the right of the “cancel” button. Then  
there are further deliberations as to whether these buttons should be  
right-aligned, left-aligned, centered, etc.

I subscribe to the latter philosophy, as it is more consistent. The  
former philosophy suggests that if for some reason the “cancel”  
button were more likely to be used on a particular screen, the  
buttons would switch places. This is, of course, ridiculous, and no  
interface that I know of actually does this. So, I strongly believe  
that “cancel” always goes on the left, and “okay” always goes on the  
right. I further suggest that they should be spatially separated to  
lessen the chance of a user accidentally pressing the wrong one.



Jack L. Moffett
Interaction Designer
inmedius
412.459.0310 x219
http://www.inmedius.com


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