[Sigia-l] Rollover Question (Web 2.0)

[Ziya Oz]

Jessica Perry:

> ...% of people who find rollovers engaging vs. those that are turned off by
> them

% stats *in the abstract* are not only meaningless but, most likely, they
will lead you astray.

It's one thing, for example, to have, say, a dozen roll-down menus each with
10 items, and something entirely different when you have just a couple of
menus with not much else on the page so the focus is naturally channeled.
It's all in the context, the payoff when the rollover does occur, the
idle/delay timing/smoothness of the reveal action, what the rollovers are
obscuring, the content, if the revealed info is essential or additional, the
design, transparency and so on.

Obviously, rollovers are meant to obscure info until they are exercised. But
that doesn't render them axiomatically evil. After all, since not everything
in a website/application can all be revealed on the landing page, a lot of
stuff is by definition is hidden by one design/architectural ruse or
another: menus, rollovers, frames, pages, sections, etc.

So, instead of relying on generic stats (and that's what you'll get), I'd
listen to a designer whose job is to *balance* these considerations to find
an optimum solution in a given context.

Just because we've all seen annoying examples of rollover doesn't mean they
are 99% bad, and conversely, just because they can make effective use of
space, they'll necessarily be an interactive panacea for a specific problem
on your site.

This is why God created Designers and stats are politicians' best friend!
:-)

----
Ziya

Usability >  Simplify the Solution
Design >  Simplify the Problem