[Sigia-l] Form Usability - Search & Cancel location

[Andrew McNaughton]

On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Listera wrote:

> "Boersma, Peter" wrote:
>
> > It sounds like you're describing a Wizard-like solution. If that is the case
> > (please explain if that is not the case), you might consider including a
> > "Previous" button, and calling the "submit" "Next" (and "Finish" on the last
> > screen).
>
> I agree.
>
> On the web, asking the user to click on "Submit" (or similar) to terminate a
> process on the back-end is unreliable. What if the user doesn't click
> "Cancel"? (You'll need a time-out routine anyway.) Incidentally, on Mac OS
> the order generally is "Cancel " | "Submit".

That's 'OK', not 'Submit' on the Mac, and most other application dialogs.

One of the major achievements of Apple in building the MacOS was in
providing developers withtools that encouraged a standard approach, and
provided extensive user interface guidelines as a printed (or printable)
document.  Anyone who hasn't seen these and who has anything to do
with interface design would be well advised to have a look at them
some time.

The Mac interface guidelines not only tell you that the buttons should be
labeled 'Cancel' and 'OK, but also specify the locations of the buttons
down to preferred pixel spacing from each other, from the edge of the
dialog, and from the dialog's content in several different arrangements
depending on the type of dialog content involved.  There's also
documentation of the expected semantics -- exactly what the user should
expect to happen and expect not to happen when they click either button.

MS Windows is much more erratic, but follows generally similar patterns in
most cases.

Andrew McNaughton