[Sigia-l] Rollover Question (Web 2.0)

Jared M. Spool jspool at uie.com
Thu Sep 28 23:32:24 EDT 2006


At 09:33 PM 9/28/2006, Ziya Oz wrote:
>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.

Agreed.

However, there is one thing you missed.

If you watch users long enough, you'll notice that they rarely move their 
mouse until *after* they've decided what they want to click on. So, if the 
rollover contains any information they would need to make the right choice, 
it's likely they'll choose wrong.

Test two designs: one with rollovers and one without (with the same content 
always visible on the page). Almost always, the users will perform and 
prefer the latter.

More info:
Users Decide First; Move Second
http://www.uie.com/articles/users_decide_first/

Jared


Jared M. Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering
510 Turnpike Street, Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845
978 327-5561   jspool at uie.com  http://www.uie.com
Blog: http://www.uie.com/brainsparks 





More information about the Sigia-l mailing list