Comments on: Why ‘Ok’ Buttons in Dialog Boxes Work Best on the Right

By: Kenneth L Wells

Kenneth L Wells — Mon, 01 Feb 2021 16:43:59 +0000

In 400 years of print design, marketers later found (in the last 70 years of advertising design) the most important thing for the viewer should be on the bottom right. This seems to happen because we in the west read left to right, top to bottom. I’ve also heard a teacher describe this phenomenon as the “period” of a layout, much like the period of a paragraph.

I have found this particular debate (left vs right of the main button) hilarious because the PC and Mac operating systems are flip-flopped from each other for a long long time for 30 years-ish.

Non-OS design has not been confined to either convention because it does not need to be. In any case we designers need to visually invite the user to click the button we think they probably should (from a biz and user perspective).

I’ve been thinking a great deal lately about the concept of noise pollution, and how that relates to my day in life and in work. The exponential messages that come at us are mostly “info pollution” and we are inundated with crap that probably is not important to each of us.

A visually prominent button on the bottom right will never be totally ignored, especially if the button makes sense.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 22:35:13 +0000

It’ll have to be flipped for languages with right-to-left reading systems like Arabic…you forgot about that.

By: Kevin Muldoon

Kevin Muldoon — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 12:42:21 +0000

I believe the positive action button should be placed at bottom right, for much the same reasons you describe. However, can we all agree this word should be spelled with all-caps “OK”? Not ‘Ok’, ‘ok’, ‘okay’, ‘Okay’ or ‘O.K.’

OK?

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 18 Aug 2019 20:05:32 +0000

I agree with this article in its entirety. I virtually only use Windows computers, but am constantly annoyed by pressing the wrong button a millisecond before I realise I’ve done it. I expect (as with all things in life) that more/accelerate/yes/ok is on the right and no/brake/cancel/destroy is on the left. Even the car has the accelerator on the right. It’s natural to think of more on the right and less on the left.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 05:35:22 +0000

I totally disagree. I don’t read the buttons, I know when a dialog box pops up with small buttons it’s going to be Yes/No in that order. If any desktop uses No/Yes then I’m always hitting the wrong button and drives me crazy. That No/Yes order is trying to be forced on me in the guise that it’s better is totally wrong.

I hate No/Yes order so much so that I will not use a system back to front to the order I want. I grew up with language where questions were Yes No. I have never heard anyone say “it’s a simple No Yes question”. Every operating system I looked at till about 2013 usually things where Yes/No (Amiga,Windows,Linux). To me it seems as if around that time someone took the reins of Android and said right your going to use No/Yes and you are going to get used to it, no you will not have any ability to tell the system what convention your prefer. Since then there seems to have been a large push to No/Yes is better. I think it’s rubbish. It’s a matter of preference and the user should be allowed to decide if they want No/Yes questions or Yes/No questions.