Would you like to Next, or Submit?

Okay, buttons should be verbs. I think we can all agree. But Next and Previous, or even the ugly but more parallel Prev, are well established actions, or implied actions, so they're used a lot. But still, what verb?

At my husband's company, a vendor is developing a UI to collect clinical data about a medical procedure. First draft: a tabbed interface that requires the user to enter data on the first form, move to the next, and so on. Sound okay so far?

Each tabbed form is so long you have to scroll. Uh oh. Scrolling on tabbed interface = bad. We're not off to a strong start.

Then, here are the three buttons at the bottom of the first tab screen:

Previous  |  Next  |  Submit

Please take ten seconds and think about what each of these would do to the data you just entered into this (long, scrolling) form.

Ready?

Previous: Please recall that this is the first form. So why is previous even enabled? It does absolutely nothing.

Next: This takes you to the next tab of info to enter. But it doesn't save your data.

Submit: This runs a validation check on your data. If it passes, your data is saved. If it doesn't pass, your data is discarded. And in any case, it throws you out of the tabbed UI altogether.

Where to begin? This vendor obviously doesn't know thing one about UI design. In ten seconds I bet you came up with better ideas.

Comments

[Doug]

Maybe this is a summer project by one of the vendor's kids? Not very prudent to show it to a client in this state. Do they acknowledge its shortcomings?

People often use Next! and Back! as verbal commands, so I think they get grandfathered as verbs. Verbish, anyway. "Previous" hasn't earned that distinction. I can almost imagine a petty bureaucrat calling out Previous! on noticing that a form has not been signed properly.

[Meg Houston Maker]

They presented a new version of the page today. Now the buttons read "Next" and "Save."

Sigh.

[Doug]

Getting closer! "Save" and "Lose" should do it. Or "Save your work" and "Forget it and move on".

[Adam]

Shouldn't the first page have only one button on it? If you're filling out the first page of a form wouldn't at least some of the data be required? If not then it should it be the first page? So why would you need a next? I know I'm preaching to the choir. Then the Save/Sumbit/Win button could read anything, "Don't click me" even and people would still click it. This is the forth time I've tried to submit this comment as there are two buttons at the bottom and I keep clicking preview and its not posting... frustrating. :)