[Usability] Re: Shouldn't "Finish" vs "Close" decision be made in the HIG [WAS: "Finish" vs. "Close" in gnome-control-center dialogs]

[Jaap Haitsma <jaap haitsma org>]

On Sat, 2006-03-25 at 11:33 -0500, Rodney Dawes wrote:
> This is an incorrect assumption. All dialogs with a close button should
> not be switched to a Finish button. They should be changed to use the
> label and icon most appropriate for what the dialog does. In the case of
> the background properties dialog, I determined that we should use the
> GTK_STOCK_APPLY icon (because the OK/close icons suck), with the label
> of Finish. This may not be the best combination for other properties or
> preferences dialogs. It is certainly not a good thing for error dialogs,
> and other similar alert dialogs.
> 
I agree for error dialogs Finish is a bad choice (I was thinking more of
applications preferences dialogs and such). Still I think there should
be some general rules like:

Error dialogs -> Close button
Preferences dialogs -> Finish button
..... -> ... button

Otherwise the desktop will get very inconsistent.

Jaap