When it comes to putting the submit and reset buttons on your forms, what order do you use?
[SUBMIT] [RESET]
or
[RESET] [SUBMIT]
This issue has come up countless times at work...
So, in your opinion, which is the most usable for online users?
I personally favor the latter, but some people tend to think otherwise.
It depends which platform background the user has, since dialogs and message boxes typically present buttons in a layout that conforms to the interface guidelines for that platform. Invariably, different platforms have different layouts for their dialogs.
I've accustomised already to the former, since I'm a Windows user and windows has that order.
Personally, I think that depends on the button's alignment. If left aligned, I prefer the first, otherwise, the later.
In both cases the more used choice is a bit more visible.
I always use [Submit][Reset] like in most ms windows windwos [ok][cancel] :)
The common format for dialogs in Windows is to have the cancel buttons on the far right (or should I say outside?).
A quick scan of the design guidelines didn't find an official recommendation of order, but you can clearly see buttons are ordered from left to right by cancell-ness (i.e., the more you cancel the further to the right your button is... yes, maybe, no, never, icantbelieveyouaskedthat).
I agree with stg: it depends on the alignment for me. If the buttons are left aligned, the "accept" (or "submit") choice goes on the left. If the buttons are right aligned, that choice goes on the right.
And a personal pet peeve of mine: no matter how the buttons are aligned, or ordered, hitting the enter key should always invoke the "submit" action.
As regards the [RESET] button, I think that the default form reset should never be used without a confirmation, especially in long forms...
Imagine the situation...a user is in a hurry and completing an online transaction, filling out personal details, credit card numbers, and tons of other stuff to needs checking, and when the user finishes, by mistake, he clicks the reset button instead of the submit...! believe me, that is a very annoying experience.
So I think, if you ever use a reset button, you should first confirm with the user, and then reset the form
In addition to the suggestions given already, I would like to add that the submit button should be an actual button where as reset or cancel just a link making it different from the submit button hence highlighting the fact that they are functionally different and keeping it simple. Last thing you want is to make your users think.
I might be in the minority here, but I never put a RESET button on my forms.
Besides when I'm testing the form, I can't see a situation where a user would need to delete all the data on the form.
And it's just too easy for a user to click it and wipe out all their hard work.
User benefit: Low
User potential problems: High
Here's how we handle confirmations... I'm sure you can change it to not use jQuery, if that's your thing...
$("#resetbutton").click(function(){ return confirm("Are you sure you want to reset the form?"); });