Re: [Usability] Gnome HIG suggestion: search box clear buttons

[Liam R E Quin <liam holoweb net>]

On Mon, 2007-06-04 at 13:20 -0700, Kirk Bridger wrote:
> I am hesitant to assume that most users connect the address bar of a
> web browser with the actual displayed document.

That's a good point - "most users" is always a difficult phrase...

>   I wonder if most people just remember "Landing page addresses" and
> the rest is just noise as they navigate through the various subpages
> to get where they want to go.

I think that would bear some careful study -- there has already been a
lot of study in this area, though, and I don't think it's as clearcut
as all that.  People do, for example, edit URLs in place, and I don't
know of studies on this specific topic.

> Flash sites really epitomize this kind of navigation

Flash sites are often very broken and not a good thing to hold up
as an example to follow.  Similarly with sites making heavy use
of Frames and violating Web Architecture.

What I was trying to suggest is that indicating when the search box,
or the URL bar, corresponds to the displayed document/results, and
when it doesn't, would in both cases be a good thing, and that it
should be done in the same way in both places, and in any other
similar places.

If users have a fuzzy model, which they probably do in most cases,
helping to make things clearer is not a bad thing :-)

Best,

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
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