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Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

bitonic.org

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Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#4

Post by droithomme »

Thanks so much for this article. Hidden interface elements that only appear when hovering over a secret spot like it's some kind of easter egg is one of the most frustrating things I have seen. It's not really user interface design so much as it is user interface abject failure and total ignorance of how interfaces work. I refuse to call anything so dysfunctional design!

This has been sneaking into desktop application interfaces also for about 5 years now.

There's no problem with it in a video game where you are finding a secret passage, or it is an easter egg that is of absolutely no consequence whether anyone finds or not.

But for critical functionality it is inexcusably and is so offensive to concepts of usability that any "designer" using this technique in software for basic functions should be identified and blacklisted from industry.

What is the affordance of invisibility? There isn't one.

Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#5

Post by po »

I have always called these interfaces 'scrubbing interfaces' and I believe it's a well known anti-pattern. It used to be popular with flash programming and design-heavy sites that didn't want all of those 'ugly controls'.

Here is my rule of thumb: avoid attaching functionality to the hover event. Visual effects/indications are fine.

Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#7

Post by po »

SquareWheel wrote: post #3

I find the behavior can cut down on clutter when pulled off correctly, though. Twitter offering context-based actions, for instance.

You're right if by correctly you mean not like this. The 'correct' way to do it would be to indicate that the field is editable. Once the user has clicked you can enable/reveal the save button if you really want it hidden. Twitter's tweet box is obviously an editable form element that can be clicked on.

It is ok if clicking on an element enables additional contextual actions… the problem is that we don't look at a page with our mouse pointer. The pointer is a proxy for our hand not our eyes.

Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#8

Post by droithomme »

po wrote: post #5

I have always called these interfaces 'scrubbing interfaces' and I believe it's a well known anti-pattern. It used to be popular with flash programming and design-heavy sites that didn't want all of those 'ugly controls'. Here is my rule of thumb: avoid attaching functionality to the hover event. Visual effects/indications are fine.

I agree. I hadn't heard that term. There's a related anti-pattern called Mystery Meat Navigation.

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/mysterymeatnavigation.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_meat_navigation

Mystery meat was weird looking inexplicable icons that you had to click to find what they do or hover to get a description. Sometimes, including in both those references, they extend it to be cases where the inexplicable icon doesn't even exist and a description is invisible until hover. The hover patter, what you call scrubbing, seems to me to be related to but different from mystery meat, which is characterized by seeing a navigation element and saying "What on earth is that supposed to be?"

Re: Open Letter to sites with annoying interfaces

#10

Post by latchkey »

I agree!

Here is another semi-close example. Not about hovering, but how about needless hiding of important user experience?

https://github.com/mozilla/browserid/issues/797

I filed this super minor issue in the browserid issue tracker and it was closed with 'as designed'. No feedback as to why it was designed this way, but it sure seems silly to me to hide the 'remove' button under an 'edit' button.

I can understand this on a UI like an iPhone, but on a web page?

Oh well.

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