[thelist] [Usability] Cancel button in forms (typically CMS

[Jared M. Spool]

Abhay wrote:

> Now, how good an idea is it to add a "Cancel" button just next to
> the "Save/Update" button? Something that perhaps executes a JS
> history(-1) with a prompt "Any changes will be lost. Do you want to
> continue?".
>
> But I want to know what the general trend these days is.
> What is your opinion about it?

Here's my opinion. It's worth what you've paid for it.

What *problem* are you solving?

Is this a multi-step process that users have demonstrated they want
to stop in middle? Why are they starting something they want to
subsequently stop?

Are users making an initial investment only to realize they don't
have the right information? Why don't they have that information?

What are the scenarios that would cause someone to stop in the
middle and want to cancel?

Now, I'm not saying that the idea of a cancel button is bad. However,
I'm wondering *why* users would use it. After all, if no-one is going
to use it, why have it?

It seems to me that a button like this is there to correct a problem.
What's the problem and how do you prevent it. I'm much more into
designing for *prevention* than designing for *correction*.

At a minimum, I would think that "Cancel" is probably the wrong
label. It should probably reference the step before and state
outwardly that it isn't saving changes.

If the previous step showed a catalogue of content, where the user
clicked a button that said "Create New Entry", this button could say
"Return to Content Catalogue WITHOUT Creating New Entry". Of course,
you'd probably want your javascript confirmation if the user has made
an investment input data only to press this button. (I wouldn't use
"Yes"/"No" buttons in that confirmation -- I'd use something that is
clear that your abandoning the changes.)

(The Save button probably would also benefit by listing the next
step, such as "Preview and Confirm New Entry", if the next page is a
preview/confirm page. I'm dubious that using the valuable button
real estate to say "Click to xxx" is adding any value for your
audience.)

Of course, all of this is opinion. I wouldn't make any such changes
until I've watched users to determine what is actually happening when
they are creating/modifying content in the CMS. All the effort for
implementation might be a waste if your not solving a problem, so
what is the problem?

Hope this helps.

Jared