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

[Antony & Donna Maurer]

Coming in late on this one...

I noticed two interesting related things this week.

First was in a usability test of a search application.  There were 
three buttons beneath the field boxes - 'clear text' on the far left, 
'undo' to the right of centre, and 'submit' on the far right (undo & 
submit were fairly close if you can imagine this).

Every user, on the  first search, typed a query and moved their mouse 
to the closest button, which happened to be undo. No-one clicked, but 
they all paused to read the buttons better.  Interesting....

The second interesting thing was something I found in Photoshop.  All 
(that I looked at) of the dialog boxes have OK/Cancel vertically with 
OK top.  Well, all except one, that has 'Cancel' then 'Replace' 
horizontally.  Just one that slipped through the cracks.  It makes me 
jump every time I find it.

So, no real answers. I guess it just depends ;)

Donna 

PS - don't ask me why the search form has 'clear text' and 'undo'.  
I've recommended they both be removed as no-one used 'clear text' and 
everyone wondered out loud about 'undo'.