User Experience for a Better World
"Add" versus "New"?
Does anyone know which is better? We are creating a new application and there are action buttons to create new items. "New" was the default for the button, but several of our internal personnel feel that it should say "Add". Example: Employees, would you create a New employee or Add an employee.
My opinion would be leave the default "New", but I would love to hear some opinions from the outside.
My opinion would be leave the default "New", but I would love to hear some opinions from the outside.
Views: 4
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Marissa Collen on -
"Add employee" is my first instinct for the button name, given your example.
I think a lot will depend on how your application is labeled throughout and whether or not they are really "adding" something to a list. Or if they are creating a "new" entry.
In cases like this in my organization I usually create a page mockup of both and show it to a few people and let them vote.
Hope that helps!
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Permalink Reply by Shandon Bissell on -
Thanks Marissa. It is a bit different depending on what the item is that you are creating, but our new application is more of a suite of applications all built with one big wrapper and I want all of the applications to be consistent. Funny how a simple thing like this seems so complicated. Some people look at me and say, "why does it matter", but it keeps getting brought up. So it must cause some confusion.
Marissa Collen said:"Add employee" is my first instinct for the button name, given your example.
I think a lot will depend on how your application is labeled throughout and whether or not they are really "adding" something to a list. Or if they are creating a "new" entry.
In cases like this in my organization I usually create a page mockup of both and show it to a few people and let them vote.
Hope that helps!
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Permalink Reply by Shannon Mihalakos on -
Sometimes "New" can be confusing, in the sense that it may refer to a "new" feature, something new in the application/ on the site. I tend to reserve the word "new" as an introduction to new features for that reason. When users are creating a list or collection I tend to use "Add". Even better, be specific about what the user is adding.
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Permalink Reply by Rajzeshwar on -
"New" is commonly used whenever a new file, folder or a record that has subsets used. "Add" is used when adding subsets like info which are not part of a important task. just for adding additional information.
And ofcourse it depends on the app too. It is good to have a UT for labels before you deploy.
Hope that helps!!
Thanks
Rajzeshwar
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Permalink Reply by Shandon Bissell on
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Thanks for all of your input. It seems there are good points on both sides. It is a web based application, but eventually we will have keyboard shortcuts and Ctrl+N would be consistent with many other applications. Ctrl+A wouldn't. Sorry I keep defending my side.
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Permalink Reply by Shannon Mihalakos on
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can you run an A/B test?
Shandon Bissell said:Thanks for all of your input. It seems there are good points on both sides. It is a web based application, but eventually we will have keyboard shortcuts and Ctrl+N would be consistent with many other applications. Ctrl+A wouldn't. Sorry I keep defending my side.
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Permalink Reply by Shandon Bissell on
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We have switched it to Add and our some of our customers needed an explanation. A quick training thing, but to me it shouldn't need an explanation to be understood. When it was New, it was our own internal people that felt it should be Add. I'm going back to New and see if our customers still need an explanation.
Thanks again to all of the feedback. I've just started using this forum and I will probably be using more and more.
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Permalink Reply by Rajat Bhardwaj on -
Best would be to have a button besides Employee List Heading saying "Add New"
Hope this helps
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Permalink Reply by T.S.S.Ganesan on -
From the above, what i understand it should be "ADD"
Again it depends on context.
Lets take this Froum for an example.
Here to start a new discussion as well as posting a reply the have a same lable..." Add Discussion" - " Add Reply".
here i would say "NEW discussion" and retain " Add Reply".
My opinion:
So when you are creating from scratch it should be "NEW".
When it is already existing and expanding it should be "ADD".an existing
I also vouch Rajat's idea...
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Permalink Reply by Shandon Bissell on
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Rajzeshwar & T.S.S.Ganesan, this is exactly what we are going to do. We're going to have both depending on the context.
Example 1: "New" Employee. Employee being the parent item. "Add" Jobs, Deductions, Time Cards, etc. these being child items.
Example 2: "New" Purchase Order. "Add' the purchase order lines.
Example 3: "New" Utility Customer. "Add" their water, electric, sewer, trash, etc. services.
This will also help on our screens because currently if you have the parent item on the top of the screen and its child items below, you have two toolbar rows. One at the top above the parent item and one in about the middle above the child items and they both say "Add", which adds to the confusion.
Thanks again.
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Permalink Reply by Shannon Mihalakos on
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Excellent solution, IMO. Hurray for use cases. :-)
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Permalink Reply by Chris D'Arcy Bean on -
Hi
I have to agree with the logic of Rajzeshwar's statement. But I can see how you don't want to suggest you are creating a person, by using the expresssion "create a new employee". To me "create a new employee record" is fine as you are defining the fact it's a record.
To say "Add..." is self explanitory, and it lends itself very well to the use of "Add another..."
The idea of using a suite wrapper (good play on words that ...just noticed it, but decided to leave it in, sorry!) to keep consistency between the applications is fine. If the users are the same for all the apps in the suite, then a consistent naming convention is possibly a good idea, but would hardly be noticable, which begs the question, is it worth going to that level of detail.
Good times.
Chris
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