Button Names

I’ve been working on a patch for bug 167045, and all works well and good, except I cannot decide which buttons to put on my dialog. Here is the dialog so far:

The “Close” button seems a little odd, but an “OK” or “Cancel” button would be even worse. Does any one have any suggestions?

60 thoughts on “Button Names”

  3. I like both of the above suggestions, but would toss “Apply Later” into the pot, if that makes sense for the situation.

  5. Shouldn’t be the answer to “Would you like to apply it now?” just a No Yes ?

  9. I’d agree with those who have said that “No” and “Yes” seem most sensible for the dialogue. Maybe you could work in a clarification that choosing “No” would keep the current theme.

  10. Yes/No seem to be the most intuitive to the question posed , and in that order (reading left to right, and Yes being a more obvious choice)..
    It seems rather unlikely that anyone would install a theme unless they plan to use it.Of course, I’m no expert on HIG.

  12. What about “I hereby choose not to apply this theme”. Complete sentences are much more understandable.

  13. Suggestion:

    The theme xxx has been installed. Would you like to use/apply (whatever fits) this (and replace your current theme)?

    Yes / No

  15. To those who say “Yes/No”: Imagine the text in the dialog (“The theme xxx has been installed…”) is blurred out and you can’t read it, relying only on the buttons for context and direction. “Yes” “No” is a horrible option.

    Something like “Keep current theme” “Apply new theme” would make sense, but I think the buttons would end up looking odd (too wide).

  18. I’d agree with the HIG people above – should the actual dialog message be obscured, the user needs a way to know what to click.

    Therefore, I’d personally go with “Keep Current Theme” and “Apply New Theme” ….

    There is, of course, the argument of instant-apply in these situations too! 😉

  19. (clicked Post too soon)

    Further to my above note – With instant apply, the theme would change, with a message asking if you wanted to use the new theme or revert to the old theme. Having said that, we’re back into wording difficulties 🙂

  20. The buttons should be whatever a human would answer to that question, had you asked a human in conversation. The way the dialog is written a person would answer “Yes” or “No”. If you want “cancel” and “apply” there, then you need to reword the dialog.

  22. I think close is fine, though maybe make the black cross red? The eye could quickly differentiate between the colours they associate with different actions, in this case green for OK/go red for bad/stop/etc.

  23. If you want to avoid a Yes/No answer you should reword the question so it doesn’t seem logical that Yes or No is the anwser.

    Maybe something like this:

    The theme … has been installed.
    Would you like to apply the newly installed theme now or keep your current one?

    Keep cureent Apply now

    This way Keep current and Apply new are the logical anwsers to the question. There is now need for the use the word ‘theme’ on the buttons since the user is working in the context of themes.

  24. Another vote for Keep/Apply (or Use).

    Yes/No violates the HIG (“Label all buttons with imperative verbs”).

  25. Don’t mind the (mostly) spelling errors in my previous post, it’s late and I’m in need of some sleep.

    The choice is ‘Apply now’ and not ‘Apply new’. Also there is NO need for …, and not now need need for …

    Just to clear things up. 😉

  26. My vote goes for “Yes” and “No” – if you asked someone the question written on the dialog, I bet their answer would be one of those two.

  27. Obviously do not use either “Yes” or “No” – they are not verbs, so they force you to read the text above.

    Apply is fine for the positive action. And it seems to me Cancel is fine for the negative.

    With those two verbs, and the current text, it reads just fine.

  28. The squiggles on the buttos make no sense and add no value. Why do need to have them there?

  29. I’d argue that the very fact you’re soliciting the peaunt gallery for advice suggests that a rethink of the whole theme application approach is necessary, but “Apply new theme” / “Keep current theme” is much better than the current options (Cancel is absolutely wrong and Apply isn’t an appropriate answer to the question).

    – Chris

  30. Should this dialog really exist at all? Isn’t it like being asked to install the theme twice?

  32. i agree with anonymous@198.182.56.5 at Mon Jun 12 2006 15:35

    do not apply is the good one
    the combo do not apply / apply is simple and makes sense

    Beside, “now” is not necessary in the question

  33. To those who are giving the “Yes/No” suggestion, please go read the HIG. It’s the absolute worst way you can design a dialog box.

    http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/

    I don’t think Cancel makes sense in this context. You didn’t initiative an action that you’re being given a chance to avoid (cancel) before it happens. Consider closing a document. (Ok so just saying Cancel there isn’t a good idea either, but play along.) Here the user is being prompted if an action should be taken on their behalf after something they did.

    I might change the wording to say “Do you want to use the theme now?” then use “Keep Current Theme” and “Use New Theme” as somebody above suggested.

  34. How about just “Ignore” for the negative answer?

    Pairing it with “Use” – as suggested above – would also work.

  36. To Jay: Yes, “Yes and “No” are horrible. But those are the logical answers to *the way it’s currently worded*. Yes, we want users to be able to just read the buttons to know what to do. But users who do read the text also need to have a clear understanding of what the buttons would do, not a worse one!

    To make that happen, the whole thing needs to read as a human conversation — or, here’s a thought — a *dialog*. The text needs to be reworded to make the answers be both verbs and automatically flow as logical answers to the dialog text. The buttons could be something like “Ignore” and “Use now”, but even with that, someone mioght want to rethink the wording a bit.

  38. Why are you even asking? If the user choose to install the theme/whatever, they want to use it. If the installation was forced on them, ask. In that case, place the questions in the buttons. [apply this now] [don’t apply this now] and drop the whole verbosity of the question. Just the buttons, nothing more.

  39. What you’re really asking if if the user wants to change his current theme to the one that’s just been installed, right? ‘Apply’ is a vague and strange word to use in a situation like this. How about something like:

    The theme %s has been installed. Do you want to use it instead of your current theme?
    — Keep Current Change Theme

    I second Mitja’s post too.

  40. I would suggest “Yes, use the new theme”, and “No, keep my current theme”. Having a clear affirmative/negative distinction seems like a feature, but adding the additional text makes the buttons stand on their own.

  41. I’m with the “Don’t Ask” camp. I think it’s exposing implmentation unnecessarily. Nobody’s going to complain if you use the them as soon as it’s installed. Most people will not be interested in the distinction between use and install (use + available for use later.).

    In the rare case that they want to keep the old theme, they can go and change it back in the theme control panel.

  42. this is a simple yes/no question. it is obvious to answer those questions with either “yes” or “no”

  43. Matt: I agree ‘Apply’ might not be descriptive enough if you don’t read the whole question, so ‘Change’ is better in that regard, but the question would have to be reworded so ‘Change’ becomes the obvoious anwser to the question (in case someone decides to read it).

    Franz (and others in favor of Yes/No): Yes/No are bad anwsers, because they don’t give any clues about what you are deciding, without reading the question. Since most computer users just click yes, without reading the question, Yes/No lead to problems in for of unwanted results.

    That is why some of us have pointed out that it is the question that needs to be changed.

    “Don’t Ask” camp: Should there even be a dialog? I’m not sure, I guess it’s another debate, but I believe that, since the dialog is not obtrusive (it’s a result of direct user action), it doesn’t hurt to give the user some extra feedback info.

  44. One more thought.

    If you would go with the instant apply mantra, maybe this would work.

    After installing the theme, it would be instantlly applied and the user would be presented with the dialog informing him of the result and giving him the choice of keeping the newly installed theme or reverting back to the old one.

    This way, if user doesn’t like the new theme (and this is, in my case at least, not as rare as Murry would have you believe), he can easily switch back to his old one.

    What do you thing?

  48. I’m amazed at how many people think that Yes/No is good enough. Time to observe some users and see how they hate Yes/No dialogs. They can deal with the dull stumbling choices with enough time, but why waste their time when you can make the experience better.

  49. Many said that “Yes/No seem to be the most intuitive to the question posed”.

    So the problem is in the question posed?

    “Apply [New] Theme” and “Keep Current Theme” is my own choice. The only problem is that they are long sentence which may be even longer after translation.

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