Order of OK, APPLY, CANCEL buttons

Question

An extenstion of this question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50335/ok-cancel-or-cancel-ok

Where should the APPLY button go (clicking the APPLY button has the same effect as clicking OK, except the dialog remains open)?

Windows typically uses OK-CANCEL-APPLY, but my inclination is to use OK-APPLY-CANCEL.

Also, if the APPLY button is clicked, should the CANCEL button text be changed to CLOSE until another change is made in the dialog? I'm assuming the APPLY button will be disabled if there are no changes to apply.

Answer 1

To answer your first question, the Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines for Windows 7 and Windows Vista specify the following order for your command buttons (p506):

• OK

• Cancel

• Apply

• Help

Now, are you smarter than Microsoft? Well, you’d hardly be the first, but you should prove it before releasing your design. Run a usability test on a bunch of users specifically creating scenarios to check if:

• Your alternative button order produces superior user performance.

• It does not cause a performance deficit when the user switches to another application that uses the standard order.

Go against the Windows UX Guide only if both of the above are demonstrated to be true.

Regarding your second question, I would recommend that you do not change Cancel to Close after the user selects Apply. A Close button usually implies that any subsequent changes cannot be reverted. Users may not have noticed the button’s initial caption thus may believe the dialog never supports canceling, making the user reluctant to explore the dialog further. Leaving the caption as Cancel assures users they can discard whatever changes they make next. If some users worry that Cancel will undo whatever they Applied, then I expect they’ll just select OK. In theory. Testing would once again tell you what users really think and do, and which design makes the best trade-off.

I’m with you that these OK/Apply hybrid single-use/multi-use dialogs are klugey and confusing. One alternative that gets around the whole problem is to use “immediate commit,” where whatever changes the user makes are instantly shown in the application (this may be a “property inspector” as the Windows UX Guide calls it). Immediate commit eliminates the need for OK, Apply and Cancel. Instead you have Close, and I would also suggest you also have an Undo button that works like an Undo menu item, sequentially reverting each change the user made with each selection. In addition to avoiding the OK/Apply/Cancel/Close confusion, this design is faster (fewer clicks to try a change), makes it clear what user input has what effect, and supports incremental undo (Cancel is all or nothing).

Answer 2

I'd stick with Chris Roberts' answer: be consistent with the operating system.

Edit: even if you consider the positioning wrong, keep in mind that in the case of Windows, Microsoft does a ton of user testing and focus-group goodness. Even if Ok-Cancel-Apply isn't the best answer for your application, if the users are accustomed to that layout then it's likely the least bad solution.

I think about the recent change to the Ubuntu UI where the Canonical team decided to move the minimize/maximize/close buttons at the top of the window chrome. The functionality wasn't changed, but boy did it irk some users (myself included). Of all the problems your application may encounter, do you really need to add a UI headache like that?

Answer 3

In Windows:

OK Cancel

Prev Next

Agree Disagree

In Mac OS:

Cancel OK

Prev Next

Disagree Agree

P.S. I prefer always set the next action closer to the right. It's like reading text (from left to right). So the next step is always closer to right, the previous step is always closer to left.

For me, it's make more sense that something previous or past should be on the left and the next or future should be on the right. But polls show it's 50%/50%... So the final decision is up to you.

Offtop: I'm using Microsoft from Windows 3.11 and pretty sure nobody in Microsoft ever thought about this so deeply... and about a lot other things in UI also...