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If it is matter of vote, I'd vote for Ok --> Cancel most of the time.

My justification for this is to avoid accidentally going for Ok when what you want is Cancel...but this happens to be biased against left-handed people!



OK then cancel makes sense because 'OK" is the first, and therefore default option

Cancel then OK makes sense as 'OK' is then in the bottom right corner, same place as the 'next' in a wizard GUI. But call it 'Continue' or something, whatever you're saying OK to.


I think that a lot of the thinking behind putting the action to the right is to have Cancel be sort of the default option (the keyboard'd still default to the action) as a way of avoiding user automatically doing actions they regret (and with the presumption that cancelling won't make them lose any work).

Of course, once they get used to that, it still becomes automatic


color cancel red.

and never color an “ok” or “go” or any action other than cancel red. not even if your app’s color scheme is red.

and don’t use both red and green.

then just be consistent.


I would only color destructive actions red (and "positive" actions green). People tend to interpret red buttons as if they'll delete something, but "cancel" should usually be the option that doesn't change anything.

For example, if you have a dialog that lets you delete something or cancel, the "delete" button should be the red one (although delete/undo is a much better flow than delete/cancel: https://alistapart.com/article/neveruseawarning)




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