Advice on ordering horizontal lists of commands

Question

I have a set up like this with a title and then several buttons/links to perform actions:

TITLE delete preview share stats publish

All else considered equal, I'm trying to consider how to order them. Publish is the sort of final action so I'd consider puttin git on the end. It was recommended to me that delete should go on the end (bc it's even more final and not likely to be used) I feel, though, that being at the end of the list makes it more obvious (end and beginning being most obvious to me).

But organizationally, it doesn't make sense for delete to be in the middle somewhere.

I would have it appear on hover, but I want the interface to work identically on touch devices.

Can you point me to any information or advice that will help me figure out the best ordering for these items?

Answer 1

I create a thing.

After I create it, I preview it.

If I like what I previewed, then I publish it.

After I've published it, I want to share it.

Once I've shared it, I want to get stats on it.

When I'm all done with it, I delete it.

So - preview -> publish -> share -> stats -> delete - completely logical!

In addition delete makes good sense not to be in the middle because with 2 neighbors there's more chance of accidentally hitting delete when I meant the option next to it.

Answer 2

I would normally expect that the most commonly used commands are on the left. So whatever is expected to be the most common or normal command for normal use should be leftmost, decreasing in expected usage as you move right.

If there is an ordering to the events - you suggest that publich is the "last" one, which implies that there is a potential ordering - then this ordering should be one used. You may find that this works better, even if it is slightly contrived - the delete, which may never be used, should come last.

The slightly more general answer is that you start reading from the left, so the earlier within this reading that you can find your required entry, the better. More significantly, if there is a potential confusion between menu items, the most common one should be earlier in the L-R reading order.