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Years ago I read an article [0] that was championing Cancel-Ok based on the fact that most of the world reads from left to right and thus the eyes move from lef

by doh 8y ago

Years ago I read an article [0] that was championing Cancel-Ok based on the fact that most of the world reads from left to right and thus the eyes move from left to right. If you use Ok-Cancel, user's eyes have to essentially go back to the positive action, which is the one that they do more often. [0] http://uxmovement.com/buttons/why-ok-buttons-in-dialog-boxes-work-best-on-the-right/ http://uxmovement.com/buttons/why-ok-buttons-in-dialog-boxes...

Stratoscope 8y ago
I wonder if they are really sure about that. What do you think, no or yes?
- doh 8y ago
  Well, it convinced me at that time, so now I force all our designers to structure it also as Cancel-Ok. On the surface it makes sense to me, but that doesn't mean it's correct. So I go with Cancel-Ok, but holding this conviction very loosely.
  - Stratoscope 8y ago
    This is one of those things where there is no wrong or right answer. We are just trying against all odds to find something that will help users feel comfortable and make the right choice. My philosophy used to be to follow the native platform convention, so on Mac it's Cancel-OK, on Windows or Linux it's OK-Cancel. Seems simple, do what people are used to. But what about a web app that someone uses on Mac at work and Windows at home, or vice versa? Do they expect the app to work the same wherever they use it, or do they expect it to follow the different native platform conventions? My mind is spinning.
    - abrowne 8y ago
      > Linux it's OK-Cancel. KDE yes, but GNOME and most GTK+ desktops and apps are definitely Cancel/OK. Google used to be pretty mixed, but Android and the Material re-designed stuffs seems to be pretty much Cancel/OK too.
      - badsectoracula 8y ago
        As i show in another reply below, it is only GNOME/GTK that does Cancel/OK, while every other environment and toolkit does OK/Cancel - this includes KDE, Tk, Motif, FLTK and even some classic X11 apps like `bitmap` use OK/Cancel. This is also the case with console-based UIs, like dialog, picotui and free vision which all use OK/Cancel. So GNOME/GTK is really the odd one out going against what everyone else is doing. It is also interesting to note that this was changed in GTK2 days since GTK1 does also use OK/Cancel: http://pike.lysator.liu.se/generated/manual/images/predef.GTK1.FontSelectionDialog.1.png http://pike.lysator.liu.se/generated/manual/images/predef.GT...
        abrowne 8y ago
        I'm not disagreeing, but on the Ubuntu MATE computer I'm using now, for graphical apps at least, I have only have apps using GTK+ — including partial users like Firefox —, Qt and wxWidgets (plus mpv, which doesn't seem to have any dialogs anyway). Qt and wxWidgets adapt to GTK+ conventions when used with GTK, or use parts of GTK+, like open/save dialogs, so everything, or nearly so, that I use is Cancel/OK. I think GNOME started intentionally copying MacOS starting with the GTK+ 2 days. Out of curiosity, I just installed Blender, which uses its own custom toolkit. The only dialogs I could find were open and save, and it has the open/save actions on top and cancel below. (That's actually what unstyled(?) Qt apps' open/save dialogs do too, as I've just seen in KeepassXC installed as a Snap.) That's one way to not take sides here ;-)
        badsectoracula 8y ago
        AFAIK in Qt you can "tag" the OK/Cancel buttons and the theme can provide a hint to swap them around, however the default seems to be OK/Cancel and KDE uses that going back to KDE1. I've also heard (but not confirmed since i do not have it) that if you use GNOME and run a Qt app, Qt will automatically swap the buttons - if that is the case then it might also do it with other common GTK+-based DEs. About the vertical orientation, actually i've noticed that not only in Blender but in other programs and toolkits too. In the latter toolkits, it most likely comes from Win9x/2K/XP which used this vertical layout (i think Vista rearranged the buttons to be horizontal).

by doh 8y ago

Stratoscope 8y ago

I wonder if they are really sure about that. What do you think, no or yes?

doh 8y ago
Well, it convinced me at that time, so now I force all our designers to structure it also as Cancel-Ok. On the surface it makes sense to me, but that doesn't mean it's correct. So I go with Cancel-Ok, but holding this conviction very loosely.
- Stratoscope 8y ago
  This is one of those things where there is no wrong or right answer. We are just trying against all odds to find something that will help users feel comfortable and make the right choice. My philosophy used to be to follow the native platform convention, so on Mac it's Cancel-OK, on Windows or Linux it's OK-Cancel. Seems simple, do what people are used to. But what about a web app that someone uses on Mac at work and Windows at home, or vice versa? Do they expect the app to work the same wherever they use it, or do they expect it to follow the different native platform conventions? My mind is spinning.
  - abrowne 8y ago
    > Linux it's OK-Cancel. KDE yes, but GNOME and most GTK+ desktops and apps are definitely Cancel/OK. Google used to be pretty mixed, but Android and the Material re-designed stuffs seems to be pretty much Cancel/OK too.
    - badsectoracula 8y ago
      As i show in another reply below, it is only GNOME/GTK that does Cancel/OK, while every other environment and toolkit does OK/Cancel - this includes KDE, Tk, Motif, FLTK and even some classic X11 apps like `bitmap` use OK/Cancel. This is also the case with console-based UIs, like dialog, picotui and free vision which all use OK/Cancel. So GNOME/GTK is really the odd one out going against what everyone else is doing. It is also interesting to note that this was changed in GTK2 days since GTK1 does also use OK/Cancel: http://pike.lysator.liu.se/generated/manual/images/predef.GTK1.FontSelectionDialog.1.png http://pike.lysator.liu.se/generated/manual/images/predef.GT...
      - abrowne 8y ago
        I'm not disagreeing, but on the Ubuntu MATE computer I'm using now, for graphical apps at least, I have only have apps using GTK+ — including partial users like Firefox —, Qt and wxWidgets (plus mpv, which doesn't seem to have any dialogs anyway). Qt and wxWidgets adapt to GTK+ conventions when used with GTK, or use parts of GTK+, like open/save dialogs, so everything, or nearly so, that I use is Cancel/OK. I think GNOME started intentionally copying MacOS starting with the GTK+ 2 days. Out of curiosity, I just installed Blender, which uses its own custom toolkit. The only dialogs I could find were open and save, and it has the open/save actions on top and cancel below. (That's actually what unstyled(?) Qt apps' open/save dialogs do too, as I've just seen in KeepassXC installed as a Snap.) That's one way to not take sides here ;-)
        badsectoracula 8y ago
        AFAIK in Qt you can "tag" the OK/Cancel buttons and the theme can provide a hint to swap them around, however the default seems to be OK/Cancel and KDE uses that going back to KDE1. I've also heard (but not confirmed since i do not have it) that if you use GNOME and run a Qt app, Qt will automatically swap the buttons - if that is the case then it might also do it with other common GTK+-based DEs. About the vertical orientation, actually i've noticed that not only in Blender but in other programs and toolkits too. In the latter toolkits, it most likely comes from Win9x/2K/XP which used this vertical layout (i think Vista rearranged the buttons to be horizontal).