Not really. The “Publish” button clearly stands out from the other two buttons. Unlike the “Preview” and “Post” buttons underneath this comment input field…

Maybe it is mre the problem of the forcing function of the “publish” button that was misleading, rather than the similarity.

I’ve definitely done this myself. What with needing to choose between the similarly styled “Save Draft” and “Preview” and “Publish” button, I will often simply pick one of them at random, as though the choice doesn’t even matter.

Yikes, how it does, though! I am one of those lucky few, and the project sounds really interesting!

I’m looking forward to reading more.  My RSS caught a glimpse of the work Natasha has been keeping hush-hush all of these months.

I wonder if they don’t look similar enough. If there were three buttons next to each other in roughly the same style—would you be more careful about reading them? Instead you have a clearly a big blue button that says “push me” and the other buttons are light and out of the way and suggest they aren’t important at all. So naturally you push the button that is screaming for your attention, assuming it will do whatever you want it it to do—publish, save as draft, snooze, whatever.

I don’t use WordPress but that definitely looks annoying and the dialog seems confusing as well (isn’t the status field redundant?). TypePad isn’t perfect but it seems to do a better job at preventing this sort of mistake: there is a single save button and a listbox for changing the publishing status (draft, publish on…, publish now).

[...] Rachel points out what is likely a common example of something we all do from time to time–making a mistake with a UI. She rightly does not directly blame the UI, but a couple of commenters allude to inherent confusion or misleading characteristics in the UI. As designers, in such cases we’re predisposed to cry foul and blame a UI for its confusing or misleading design, but I hope that we don’t shut off our brains in the process. Is it not perfectly acceptable to require that users read what is on a button in order to ascertain its function? [...]

I would be annoyed if they were any more different. The shape of the buttons ought to be consistent in an interface. Square corners mixing with rounded corners would be a pretty inconsistent and not very elegant. I think the designers used good judgement here by using contrast and color to define the button differences, using physical space to ward off accidental press and used clear language to indicate the purpose of the button.

I’ve made similar mistakes of pushing the wrong button at an inopportune time, but the mistake was mine for not double checking my actions.