Button order in online forms

[Chauncey Wilson]

This is a problem that nearly everyone faces when designing forms.
You mention "standards" in your note, but there are no clear standards
for button order because it varies with operating system (Mac versus
PC), task, frequency of task, whether the form is one that will be
filled out primarilly with the mouse or the keyboard (this will often
depend on the frequency of filling the form out - once versus dozens
of times a day) and other factors.  For items with vastly different
frequencies of use and little or no overlap, you might even have
different button layouts.  You will also have to figure out the impact
of errors if you make changes from your current button order.  This
debate has been ongoing since Windows and Mac diverged on button long
ago (in fact, Microsoft seemed to switch I believe when they created
the NT operating system).

We have some specialist on form design (Caroline Jarrett is a forms
expert, for example) who might have some strong rationales for the
ordering.  One thing you might do is conduct a "claims analysis" where
you take the alternatives and list all the positive and negative
consequences associated with each choice (Jack Carroll uses this
method in his scenario-based design approach to evaluate the impact of
design decisions).  You've already listed a few consequences in your
email.  Consistency is involved here, but there are different types of
consistency, consistency with the OS, consistency your other
applications or forms, consistency with products that are used with
yours, etc.  Efficiency is another factor.  If this is a one-time
form, and the buttons are clearly labeled and you expect people to use
the mouse to click, then the differences in efficiency are likly to be
minimal.  If your design is for a task that the users will do many
times a day, you could use the GOMS KLM (keystroke-level model) to
estimate task completion times for expert users.  If your users are
filling out the form often, then you would expect high keyboard use
and would want to optimize the layout for the keyboard.

I would put your question as one of the top 10 general UI
design/usability questions that come up and it is really quite a
complex question with no straightforward answer.

I think that it would be quite cool to have an FAQ related to these
common, but hard questions in UI layout that would discuss the main
issues affecting design.  This has been an issue since around 1986 or
so and is still a tough one to answer, especially for Web forms.

Chauncey

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 10:20 PM,  <Kat_Hardisty at bnz.co.nz> wrote:
> l
> We're currently reviewing the layout of online forms on our company site,ab
> and are debating the pros and cons of whether the 'confirm' button should be
> on the left or the right of the 'back' button.
>
> The delemia being that the logical tab order would go from left to right,
> and since the preferred action will be the 'confirm' button, it should be
> the first button reached by using tab.  However, for mouse users, it makes
> more sense to put the 'confirm' button on the right and the 'back' button on
> the left, due to the mental image of going forward through a book/site/etc
> you move to the right.
>
> Is there a usability standard for which option to go with here?  I haven't
> been able to find anything which gives a strong preference for one order or
> the other....
>
>
> Kat Hardisty
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