Raymond Chen on setup UI

Raymond Chen, famous Windows shell ninja, suggests today in his blog that the “action” button in a setup wizard, should be labeled Next instead of Finish. While I wholeheartedly agree that Finish is a bad label for the button that kicks off the actual installation process, Next has its own problems. In WixUI, each installation action gets its own label: Install, Change, Remove, Repair. Buttons labeled Next are reserved for pages that lead to more options.

Raymond can undoubtedly call upon legions of minions to punish me for my heresy, but I think the current WixUI model is better because it’s more explicit. And it means you can “page surf” to your heart’s content as long as you see Back and Next buttons.