I committed to doing research on button placement and here are some
examples of what I found. You will not be surprised to learn that
there is no "right" answer.
From UX Matters, 7 Best practices for Buttons:
"..on the vexing question of Next and Previous buttons in survey
research. You can find opinions everywhereand they’re often backed up by
references to various style guides, articles, and even actual
research."
The article goes on to say that context is everything and recommends
that the action be placed as close as possible to the final interaction
on the page in question.
In my opinion this supports the idea of putting the Next button in
the center of the page as the activities are so left-focused.
Eyetracking
research supports the idea that the best place for a button is
aligned with the left side end of text boxes. Users searching for the
Next control looked first just below the inputs, second at the right hand
side and lastly to the left of the screen.
"We recommend that designers consider the use of a hyperlink for
the Previous or Back function, or place the Previous
button below the Next button, either centered (if the questions
are centered on the page or the majority are presented horizontally) or
on the left (if most of the questions are presented vertically and
left-justified)."
Again, the question seems to marrow down to whether Next should be
on the left or in the center. There is no page configuration for which
they support putting the Next button to the right.
These results seem to stem from a long standing... "Windows
convention of placing the most frequently used functions on the left of
the menu bar. For example, “Save” or “OK” is often on the left while
“Cancel” is on the right (see Ferrell, 2009)." Quote is from
the same article.
Hope this is helpful, and please let me know if more research is
needed.
Best,
Sharron
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