[Usability] Go/Send buttons
- From: Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>
- To: Usability gnome conference <usability gnome org>
- Subject: [Usability] Go/Send buttons
- Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 03:56:51 +1300
On 1 Feb, 2006, at 4:08 AM, Evandro Giovanini wrote:
...
The Go button:
1) makes life easier for some people (the example you mentioned), and;
2) makes the user experience more annoying for some people (point and
click a small button instead of just pressing Enter after typing a URL
with they keyboard).
...
More precisely, someone who expects to see a Go button when there isn't
one might take ten or fifteen seconds (admittedly quite a long time) to
work out that they need to press Enter instead. But from then on, they
know; they might be a bit hesitant the second and third times, but
after that it becomes natural.
On the other hand, every time someone clicks the Go button just because
it's there, the obvious thing to do, they take two or three seconds
longer than they would by pressing Enter. (And unlike most mouse vs.
keyboard fights, the mouse users can't use the time-to-mouse to think
about what to do next, because this is a Web browser or an instant
messenger where they're going to need to wait several seconds for the
result anyway.)
So within a couple of days of solid browser use, or a few minutes of
instant messenger use, they've spent more than fifteen seconds total in
clicking that button, more time than they would have spent learning to
press Enter. From then on, you're sucking time out of their lives.
Don't do that.
--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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