Clear Primary Actions in Drupal
2010 July 03Clear primary actions can and should be applied across an application anytime there is a choice to be made. Although we can't control our users' actions, we can certainly guide them visually, and as Smashing Magazine points out, "[relieve] the user from having to think about which option to choose in order to complete their task."
Smashing Magazine does a great job of explaining the pattern:
What are primary and secondary actions? Primary actions lead to the completion of a form; for example, clicking "Save" or "Send." Secondary actions usually do not lead to a form's completion; these include clicking "Cancel." There are exceptions, though. Which are the primary and secondary actions when you see "Save," "Save and continue" and "Publish" buttons all in a row? When users have several options, highlighting primary actions and de-emphasizing secondary actions are good practice.
Drupal's administrative interface is completely lacking this treatment, but after noticing how its buttons are themed (and applying some CSS3 decoration), it's relatively easy to make something like this example below:
