User Interface Blog

Most applications today present dialog boxes with questions and often present two or more choices. As example, if you close a modified document in an application the Save dialog appears and present two choices, Yes and No. Where Yes indicates that the user want to save the document and No to discard the document changes. In addition the Save dialog often contains the Cancel option where the modified document will not be closed.

Following are example dialogs:

Save Dialog of Microsoft Notepad

Save Dialog of Microsoft Word

Dialogs of Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. The standard Save dialog presend Yes, No and Cancel whereas the Explorer present Try Again and Cancel.

I agree that in this example it is easy to determine that Save the changes means Yes and do not save the changes means No. But often it is difficult to determine the right choice. I like the approach to use verbs as choices instead of simply presenting Yes, No or Cancel. Often this is also recommend by current design standards

Apple Human Interface Guidelines

“Button names should be verbs that describe the action performed.”

KDE Standards

“Instead of labeling the OK option “OK”, it is better to provide options that are named in a way that describes what will happen when they are pressed.”

Microsoft

“The label for a command button should describe the button’s action. Aim for the shortest possible label; one word is best.”