Yes-no

There’s a new trend in user interface design that you may have seen. When I say “you may have seen”, what I really mean is, “you may have been irritated and confused by this”.

Since the invention of computers, it has been convention to order buttons that seek confirmation as “Yes then No”, or “OK then Cancel”. This is because in common language use, we put positive before negative.

However, some bright spark had this notion that when you show the user those buttons, they read the first button (“Yes”), then the section button (“No”), and then you have to go back to the first button to click it. These are called “visual fixations” – “Yes then No (then back to Yes)” causes three visual fixations; “No then Yes” causes just two.

So… look I think this is stupid and confusing, but this is why people have started doing it now. It’s so that you don’t mentally have to go BACK to find the first button.

Give is 70 years to work through two generations and the language order will have changed to match. So, wait it out I guess?

26/Nov/2023