gerritadmin wrote:

Change 156838 had a related patch set uploaded by Jdlrobson:
Update preferences form buttons to be right aligned.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/156838

I think this would be a bit confusing if we place the most important button last. People read from left-to-right (except for those who read right-to-left, of course ;) ), so the buttons should also go left-to-right in LTR languages.

(If you decide to do this anyway, please take special care in the implementation to not break tabindex ordering. The primary button should focus first, not last.)

(In reply to Bartosz Dziewoński from comment #2)

I think this would be a bit confusing if we place the most important button
last. People read from left-to-right (except for those who read
right-to-left, of course ;) ), so the buttons should also go left-to-right
in LTR languages.

My understanding is the theory is that by putting the most important button last, you minimize the brief "where was that button?" moment (after you've read all the buttons, right before you click). The idea being that it's fresh in your memory since you just saw it.

(If you decide to do this anyway, please take special care in the
implementation to not break tabindex ordering. The primary button should
focus first, not last.)

I'm not actually sure what we should do here. Some people would probably find it simpler if tabindex matched the visual order (that would break tab muscle memory, but changing the visual order already breaks muscle memory, so it's the same issue).

Bartosz, Matt is correct, additionally, if the primary action is rightmost (in LTR)its in a known place, in the composition of a form left aligned buttons, especially when they share a line with other controls can be hard to pick out as important when they are in a known place, along the edge, the user has less to parse though.

for tab index order we should probably go right to left within the button group.

In T67317 @saper wrote:

Please do not right-align, if possible. On my LTR interface all the checkboxes are closer to the left edge of the screen, and I just move down to save. When using mouse it would mean an additional movement to the right.

(Copying to this task, because the alignment idea was split out of that task)
Personally, I agree.