In school we're always asked to make use cases and scenarios for software design. Well, I just browsed in a completely ordinary manner and realized how much the "back/forward" paradigm sucks. So here's my scenario: Goal: learn about next semester's professors Preconditions: - Browsed to "www.ratemyprofessor.com". - Browsed to my school (country -> province -> school, no big deal). Description: - Clicked the "T" link, to get the web page of professors whose last names begin with "T". - Scrolled to the professor, clicked on his name to see his web page. - Clicked "back" to get to the list of professors whose last names begin with "T". - Clicked the "M" link to find my next professor. - Scrolled to my professor, clicked on his name to see his web page. - Clicked "back" to get back to the professor list. - Repeated 3 more times. - Wanted to go back to my first professor's web page. What I instinctively tried: - I clicked the little down-arrow next to the "back" button to see a list of my recently-browsed pages. I felt that those pages ought to have been there. Workarounds: - I could have used the History, but I don't want to open a whole new window: I feel like those pages should be easily available. - I could train myself to middle-click on links when I assume they'll have what I want, or to open a new tab on web pages I find mildly interesting, on the off chance that I decide I'd like to peruse them again. It seems to me this exact same procedure crops up when browsing online mailing lists and -- most importantly -- Google search results. I'm well aware that this post has absolutely no material that hasn't been discussed for ages, but I find it describes a very simple and very common use case. In fact, I'd guess that the solution to this simple use case would probably cover around 90% of the use cases in which the "back/forward" paradigm breaks down. I only post this on the off chance that it inspires somebody. -- Adam Hooper <adamh densi com>
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part