UI best practice question: Cancel button or Cancel link
I have a discussion with a colleague about what the "web standard" is for canceling in an form. In our discussion we have a "change password" page as example. We have a designed "send" button and "cancel" button. Both the same design.
He claims that in web standard a cancel button is no longer a button but a link transferring the user to another page. In my opinion, for those pages including a cancel button it actually is a cancel button which either resets the form and/or send the user to the prevision page.
Who is correct? Link or button... or both? And why? Any links to where this kind of standard is decided?
Br,
Paul Peelen
EDIT I guess the answer with most votes will be the "correct answer"?
Answer
Here is some actual primary research into just this question, I won't add any subjective opinion on top...
Primary & Secondary Actions in Web Forms - probably the best research I've come across into exactly this question
Reset and Cancel Buttons - an article from 2000, pointing out that reset functionality is harmful and cancel functions are often unnecessary
OK–Cancel or Cancel–OK? - sticking to a standard order helps usability
The best answer I could give - test both, see which one works best.
On a side note, I wouldn't call this 'web standard', that has meaning towards front-end web technologies (HTML, CSS etc.), I would say 'UI best practice' fits better.