Nick wrote: > As an aside, I'm sending this from my web-based version of home email > (it gets complicated). I fill in a text field to write this, then if I > go bottom left, the most obvious button is actually 'inbox', which > loses my inputs. I've done that more than once. So why am I looking to > the bottom left? I don't think I do that on other forms. Here's what I've learned from many years of usability testing and some eye-tracking studies of forms.
What users really do is look for 'next box for me to type in'. They'll also recognise, but not quite so strongly, 'next control for me to interact with' (radio buttons, check boxes, drop downs). At each step, the eyes (mostly) drop vertically from the box just filled in, turn left to read the label, back to the box, fill in (or interact with control), drop vertically again. (Exceptions: sometimes the eyes will read a few labels and then track back to fill in a few boxes, e.g. if the labels are extremely predictable as in a name/address block, or if the questions are strange or invasive. Sometimes the eyes will read a few boxes e.g. if the boxes are pre-filled. Sometimes users just do inexplicable things. So now back to the general pattern). At some point, the boxes to type into run out but users don't know that until it happens. The eyes have dropped vertically, and look: no more boxes. Ideally, at this point, the vertical drop puts you directly onto the button that finishes this page of the form: send, submit, next, ok, whatever is appropriate in the context. If the button isn't just there in the vertical column, then the eyes hunt around a bit, looking for the correct button. If the button vertically under the left-hand end of the form fields, or the closest to that position, happens to be 'Reset' or 'Cancel', or in Nick's example 'Inbox' - then oops, a lot of people will click it reflexively because the 'button' visual quality overrides the text written on it. If the user doesn't WANT to finish the form, then the hunting pattern varies. That's when the general convention of 'next' being on the right and 'previous' being on the left kicks in. I think Brett's result of 'next' working better on the left is happening not so much because 'next' is on the left, but because that puts 'next' directly under the left-hand edge of the form fields. Would be handy to see s few examples, please Brett, so that I can verify this guess. If you read Luke's discussion on this topic with this information in mind, then it's obvious why his separated Cancel and Submit buttons didn't work. It's because in that design, Cancel was placed most directly under the left-hand edge of the form fields. Would have been fine if the buttons were the other way around. http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/PSactions.asp best Caroline Jarrett Effortmark Ltd Usability - Forms - Content Phone: 01525 370 379 Mobile: 0799 057 0647 International: +44 152 537 0379 16 Heath Road Leighton Buzzard Bedfordshire LU7 3AB UK ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
