OK-Cancel or Cancel-OK?

Which is the right order for arranging buttons in a dialog box?

From stackoverflow Omega

• :) OK Cancel
  unless you live in a locale or an app that has the opposite as convention.

  DevelopingChris : unless you are in a language that reads in the opposite direction.
  From Gishu

• Depends on if you use windows or mac.

  IIRC, Windows guidelines suggest OK-Cancel, whereas Apple recommends Cancel-OK

  DevelopingChris : platform is not a factor, its the users reading direction.

  Greg Hurlman : Platform is *definitely* a factor. Always.

  Chris Upchurch : Platform is definitely a factor. Windows folks are used to clicking the left-hand button without looking, Mac folks are used to clicking the right-hand button. One of the teltale signs of a lazy or naive Mac port is that it still uses the Windows OK-Cancel convention.

  TenebrousX : Before Chrome, I used to have to install Safari to test projects in webkit-based browsers, and it always bugged me how it would bring up the "Would you like to set Safari to be your default browser?" dialog with the OK-Cancel buttons "reversed". Got me every time.
  From Joel Coehoorn

• Thanks for your opinion! But why one sequence is better than another?

  DevelopingChris : Reading direction

  davogones : OK Cancel is better only because everyone else does it that way. If you confuse users by reversing the order, they will hate your application and stop using it.
  From Omega

• To me it does not matter to much about the order. It is all about consistency. If you do it OK-Cancel it should be that way throughout your entire app.

  Though it is hard to stay consistent with everything since Microsoft can not stay consistent. They have so many different orders and buttons its a little silly.

  From pete blair

• Depends on the platform, most desktop environments have Human Interface Guidelines (HIGs) that will define what the standard is. Always follow the platform standard, conventions and consistency always win.

  Some HIGs:

  • Gnome HIG
  • Apple
  • Microsoft Vista
  Sam Hasler : It's better to use verbs for button names, see this example http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa974176.aspx#guidelines
  From Boris Terzic

• I think OK-Cancel. Because you want the affirmative answer first? "Yes-No" not "No-Yes", right?

  From Tundey

• You should try, whenever possible, to use verbs instead of OK/Cancel. When closing an unsaved document it should be Save/Don't Save or if an error pops up it should be Continue/Cancel etc.

  From Kyle Cronin

• And for crying out loud, make sure you use OK, and not Ok.

  travis : Either is better than "Okay" although I did see one app that had "Oll Korrect" that kinda made me laugh quietly to myself. ;-)

  Jeff Atwood : "Oll Korrect" is part of the historical derivation of OK, actually

  wvdschel : The "Oll Korrect" story is a myth actually, or so my history-studying brother tells me. Don't shoot me if I turn out to be wrong.

  Kev : 'Okay' is actually more proper than 'Ok', since 'O.K.' is the short form of 'okay'.
  From jodonnell

• OK is the default, and most left-to-right languages expect the default first, so OK, Cancel.

  For right-to-left languages it's Cancel, OK.

  ldigas : And probably not in Latin :-)
  From Keith

• Like others have said, it really depends on your platform.

  The best way to find out is to look at a few applications that come with your operating system and see how they lay out their buttons.

  If you're working in Javascript, you won't have a choice - the browser will pick for you!

  mikek3332002 : Javascript won't if you're doing a custom window.
  From 17 of 26

• I agree with Boris, it is just a convention thing. That is why they are there.

  From Richard Tasker

• The order doesn't matter, all it matters is that it's consistent. Follow the platform guidelines if there is one, if not, at least be consistent within your own app.

  One thing that is important is to have the default answer appropriate to what you're asking. If you're asking "Are you sure you want to quit?", after the user selected "file/quit", the 'yes' should be the default. If you're asking "Are you sure you want to format the entire drive?", the default should always be 'no'.

  From zigdon

• The only correct answer, as others have pointed out, is to follow your operating system's conventions and guidelines.

  From Thomas Owens

• Be consistent with your environment.

  But if you have a choice, use specific words in the dialog box, not "OK" and "Cancel" or "Yes" and "No", so that the user doesn't have to figure out what you mean by "OK"...and you can put the answers in the order that makes sense for your app and users.

  From David Singer

• As others have said, match the environment of your application. There is one gotcha to this though, the web. What's correct there if you have an in page form or AJAX dialog?

  I'd in that case say.. match your environment! Detect the user's operating system through the browser and provide CSS with both orders depending on what they are running.

  From Nidonocu

• Cross-platforms toolkits like Qt handle that for you. From Qt doc: "The order of the buttons on screen is platform-dependent. For example, on Windows, Save is displayed to the left of Cancel, whereas on Mac OS, the order is reversed."

  From kraymer

• Jakob Nielsen (usability guru) has written an article about this very subject.

  It's a good article, but it essentially boils down to making sure you're consistent (within your application, with the host operating system, and with your users expectations)!

  Sergej Andrejev : I wouldn't do blindly follow Nielsen. While his advices are good (sometimes) providing user with what he expects is far better. So when designing an application I would first look at the platform (as Boris mentioned), then at popular applications in same field and only then use expert advices.

  280Z28 : -1: He did write an article on the subject, but it boils down to being consistent with the operating system. Consistency within the application that violates the platform standard is objectively incorrect and completely unacceptable. I'll change this to +1 if you correct your summary.

  Chris Roberts : Fair enough. Seems a little pedantic - I was expecting people to read the article themselves, but still - it's updated now. :o)
  From Chris Roberts

• One reason for placing the affirmative choice first is to allow keyboard navigation to work faster for the default case - one less tab keypress on every operation that throws up this dialog could save some annoyance for the users.

  Having said that, you're probably best off following everyone else's advice and going with consistency.

  From Cebjyre

• You probably shouldn't be using OK/Cancel or Cancel/OK because it's not a very good description of what's going on.

  However, assuming that the words themselves are not the essence of your question, but you're actually answering any affirmative/negative style question in a form:

  It really depends on the location of your other affirmative answers. Imagine that you're going through a form, and like most forms all of your affirmative responses are on the right (Continue, Edit, Print, Order and so on), and all of your negative responses are on the left (Cancel, Go Back and so on), you can't reverse the process on individual pages.

  From $pageUsers[$post.author].name

• I am not sure there is a write answer to this but i agree that what really matters is that what ever you pick you must then be consitant across your application.

  From TheAlbear

• I'd argue that it's more important to worry about which option will be selected when the user hits enter. I would say that you should have it set to whatever the user is most likely to select (assuming they're doing so purposefully that is).

  From Jason Baker

• You should always utilize "The Power of Sameness". Do things exactly like everyone else is doing so that your users don't need to learn a new user interface. Otherwise your users will hate you and use your competitor's product. Break this rule only if you have a really good reason.

  From davogones

• Use the verb names directly. Rather than Do you want to save changes? - YES/NO? Prefer, What do u want to do? Save/Don't Save.

  Check out my post for more details... http://blog.mugunthkumar.com/tech/elements-of-usability-design-okcancel-vs-cancelok-is-it-just-a-matter-of-taste/

  MPritch : Agree, but would still make sense to keep 'positive' and 'negative' actions the same way around consistently.
  From Mugunth Kumar