What text to include on “Next” buttons?

Question

I have several forms spanning a few pages. What should I ideally put on the "Next" buttons after one page form has been filled-out?

For instance, my page 1 form is "Describe Book" and the next page is "Write Review". These are some of the versions I can think of (bold text is considered the 'primary button'):

1. [Write Review ->] [Save & Preview] [Cancel]
2. [Save & Continue to Write Review ->] [Save & Preview] [Cancel]
3. [Continue to Write Review ->] [Preview] [Cancel]
4. [Write Review ->] [Preview] [Cancel]

What is the optimal way of naming these buttons? 1, 2, 3, 4? Or if not within those 4, what other combination would be best?

Answer 1

If you have several steps that are logically related, have icons/text for all steps shown in a row, with the current step highlighted. Then you can have generically named "next" and "previous" buttons on each side of this.

You can also allow the user to click directly on the individual steps if you wish (if you don't mind allowing them to break sequence).

Showing all the steps and where the user is situated in it will make the process clear, make it easy to see where they are in the process, and give positive feedback that shows progress.

Here is a quick and dirty example:

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