Itqualityassurance
- What does a Cancel button do?
- Should you save the button at the top or bottom?
- Is OK on left or right?
What does a Cancel button do?
What does the Cancel button do exactly? It dismisses the user's current screen and brings them back to their previous screen. This dismissive button is a safeguard to prevent unwanted changes to the system. But when it looks like a call to action button, it's hard to recognize.
Should you save the button at the top or bottom?
Considering that your users will typically navigate to one category, make a change, then click Save Changes, I think placing the button at the bottom/left is best. If your users were frequently making changes across multiple categories, then you'd have a good argument for placing the button at the top.
Is OK on left or right?
Listing OK first supports the natural reading order in English and other languages that read left-to-right. Many other button sets have a natural progression (say, Yes / No or Previous / Next). You should always list these so that the reading order matches the logical order — in this case, OK / Cancel.
