[Sigia-l] loooooong buttons

[Maria Cordell]

Samantha,

I also generally favor and use button labels that clarify the result
of clicking a button. But there's an important difference between the
example you've provided and the OK/Cancel case. The latter represents
two opposing actions; the user chooses to do something or cancels the
action. The action is very clear (you agree or you don't) and the
result is (generally) very predictable.

The example you provide is quite different because it gives the user
two subtly different options ("summary" and "summary & sources"). The
most appropriate user action may not be evident, even if you make one
of the buttons the default.

For something like this I suggest thinking about and researching which
of the options is most often used, presenting the options in some kind
of list (e.g., checkboxes), and having the most common option(s)
selected by default. I know this may mean an extra click in some
cases, but I think it's worth doing that for the sake of flexibility
and clarity. Complement this with a suitably worded button, and the
appropriate selection--and its result--will be much clearer to the
user.

Maria Cordell

On 5/23/06, Skot Nelson <skot at penguinstorm.com> wrote:
>
> On May-23-2006, at 2:55 PM, Samantha Bailey wrote:
>
> > The issue in question is two buttons side by side:
> >
> > "Print Summary" | "Print Summary & Sources"
>
> I can think of several design solutions to the problem. Whether
> they'd be implementable of course depends on your specific design.
>
> In any case, long buttons are not inherently evil. It's the context
> that determines their appropriateness.
>
> I'd be more concerned about whether people would understand the fine
> distinction between these two labels, but assume you've done the work
> and are confident that they would.