[IxDA Discuss] [Design Patterns] Save and Cancel

[Pankaj Chawla]

On 2/6/08, W Evans <wkevans4 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Some input and thoughts would be appreciated.
>
> For modal (and modeless) windows, pop-ups, and "lightbox" ajaxed pop-ups,
> after a person has performed certain tasks, there are two options - commit
> those changes or cancel the dialog window. What order is best? Mac OS X
> orders them as Cancel |  Save, whereas many windows and web applications
> have them as Save | Cancel.

Expect for Mac OS you will find the Save|Cancel as the norm. So
depending on which platform you are developing I would say follow the
rules of the platform as people using that platform are intuitively
porgrammed to click the last button to exit without commits and mostly
the button on its left to exit with commits.

Just to give an example of how programmed people are; in a new product
we were doing we decide to move File->Import menu item to
Project->Import as our application had a notion of Project and Import
seemed like a functiomality that belonged to the Project. The outcome
was that we heard people complaining lost functionality as they
couldnt fine File->Import and nobody even looked under Project menu to
see if it was there. When we tried to explain to customers, the
response was "File->Import is programmed into us and we just want it
there, it might not be the right place but if we can find it there it
is the right place for us". And this was not a one customer response
but almost everybody had the same one. So the moral of the story is -
"dont change things that people have got programmed into even if they
dont make sense to our designer's brain :-)"

Cheers
Pankaj