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Re: research on location of submit buttons

for

From: John Foliot
Date: Apr 2, 2009 1:10PM

Angela French wrote:
>
> I know this will fail (or cause unhappiness among) data entry folks who
use
> keyboard instead of mouse. Though perhaps setting up a tab order could
help
> alleviate this.
>
> This is an internal application and I do not know whether any of the
possible
> users will be on assistive technologies.
> I was hoping I could get them to change it before it even gets out the
door
> for user testing if I could back it up with a little research.

(re-threaded for clarity - please respect threading protocols folks)

Steve and Angela,

You might want to investigate Jakob Nielsen's research of eye-tracking and
screen 'hot-spot' studies as a possible suggestion to this idea
(http://www.useit.com/eyetracking/). Colloquially, I have observed that
most right-handed users (re: mouse usage), when in a rest state on a web
page, will likely have the cursor positioned to the top-right quadrant of
the screen - conditioning perhaps due to page scrolling, where the scroll
bar starts at the top right corner? So, if you *really* need to place
submit buttons in a non-traditional place, I would suggest the right-hand
side, as opposed to the left-hand side.

The most important consideration however will remain user-testing - I am
personally unsure that this will be a workable solution. Remind your
'designers' that form should follow function - yes?

Cheers!

JF


>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Steve Green [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 2:46 PM
>> To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
>> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] research on location of submit buttons
>>
>> Breaking long-standing web design conventions is almost always a bad
idea.
>> Rather than look to research, I suggest you do some user testing. All
my
>> experience of user testing suggests that your design is going to fail
badly
>> for some user groups.
>>
>> Has anyone actually done any research into putting form controls in
>> non-intuitive locations?
>>
>> Steve Green
>> Director
>> Test Partners Ltd>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>>> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Angela
French
>>> Sent: 01 April 2009 21:19
>>> To: ' <EMAIL REMOVED> '
>>> Subject: [WebAIM] research on location of submit buttons
>>>
>>> I am hoping that someone can direct me to some definitive research
that has
>>> been done about the best position of form action buttons (submit
buttons) on
>>> a web page with a form. I am testing an application built by our
>>> development team and the submit buttons (multiple possible actions) in
some
>>> cases, are NOT located at the bottom of the form. They are in the
left hand
>>> column which also serves as the navigation area. "Ouch" you say? I
know.
>>> Now I need some research to back up my suggestion that it be changed.
>>>
>>> Thanks for any links to studies/white papers written on this subject.
>>>
>>> Angela French
>>> Internet Specialist
>>> State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
>>> 360-704-4316
>>> http://www.checkoutacollege.com<;http://www.checkoutacollege.com/>;