> Yes, thanks for that. I'm pretty much aware of these issues. My point
> goes back to a usability issue and what users are used to interacting
> with on web sites.
I've seen a lot of inexperienced users double-click web links and form
buttons ("hey! they charged my credit card twice!"). Does that mean
browsers should be changed to only respond to double-clicks? Or should
users learn to click once?
[Yes, it's nice to disable buttons after the first click - but that's
also kind of reinforcing the fact the user did the wrong thing. To an
extent it should teach users that one click was enough.]
Users are used to doing quite a few things that aren't good. Plus, the
fact that "click here" is bad for accessibility means that the bad
habits of content authors and the expectations of some users is being
used to justify ignoring the best interests of another group.
> It seems to me, and I hate to concede this, that the
> "Click Here" phenomena has become a standard interface label to tell
> users to do something, and if the don't see it they make another
> assumption about that link. It's so part of the general design community.
I wouldn't say it's "standard" - although "click here" is common, it's
not like people build navigation lists like this:
- Click here to go to homepage
- Click here to go to about us page
- Click here to go to contacts page
- Click here to go to downloads page
That's the logical conclusion of saying "click here" is required for
people know they should click something. I haven't seen it anywhere,
instead you get:
- Home
- About Us
- Contacts
- Downloads
Most users would probably figure out that list is a set of links; if
people stopped writing "click here", users would get used to that too.
> I don't know... the way we do label things... like Podcasting... Casting
> Pods??? It doesn't really represent the action at all.
Sure, it's a really stupid name for a technology/technique; but it's
entirely accurate to use the term to link to that
technology/technique. Link text isn't the problem there :)
> And isn't it great that
> good old Google will let you search on over 6 billion references to
> "Click Here"
Sure, but you don't know what any of them are about :)
> I'll be interested when I start seeing usability studies in this area.
Well, the link I posted is from a usability consultant; Jakob Nielsen
has also said not to use "click here"
(http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html); the W3C says it's
bad (http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/#gl-facilitate-navigation);
and in fact every other web content usability and accessibility
resource I've looked through says it's bad (if it specifically
referred to link text).
That lot really is enough for me; although I guess you're looking for
something with hard data? Fair enough I guess. It's a tough one to
search for though - all the "click here"s out there foul up the
results ;)
cheers,
Ben
--
--- <http://www.200ok.com.au/>
--- The future has arrived; it's just not
--- evenly distributed. - William Gibson
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