On Monday, January 19, 2004, at 02:21 PM, Taco Fleur wrote:
Any more ideas on this matter from other people?
What your saying makes sense in a way - but I reckon it is not a valid argument not to classify the button as a clickable object and make this visible.
I didn't say it wasn't clickable. I just said it should behave like other buttons that the user is used to interacting with. As has been pointed out by other posters, main application menus in your OS are probably not marked with a pointer -- in fact, none of the icons on my OS X or XP Pro desktops have a 'finger' style pointer at all -- they all use an arrow.
If I understand you correctly you are saying we should not touch the design of a button because it could confuse the user, that would mean every website would have GREY buttons.
No, you'd end up with lots of DEFAULT buttons, not specifically GREY ones. Safari and Camino's buttons are always styled by Aqua (OS X plastic buttons), ignoring whatever author styles you provide.
Windows XP's default styling of form buttons isn't quite as drastic, but on mouseover, they do get shaded with a yellow glow on the edges (at least on my set-up).
I personally think you can style the buttons as much as you like, as long as they are CONSISTENT throughout your site.
We don't have to agree at all, but here's my point. A lot of users are *not* dumb. They realise that links aren't always underlined with blue text. They realise that buttons may not always look like what they're used to -- this is good for you.
However, the majority (guess only) of webpages the user visits are styled with default buttons. Even if only 25% of sites are using default buttons, it's still a SIGNIFICANT NUMBER more sites that your ONE INTERFACE which is different.
So they visit your site, with buttons that are styled differently -- no matter how insignificant the task appears, the user still has to *learn* your interface (and *remember* it) -- which is a task my websites will not (generally) ask them to do too much of.
I *do* have exceptions to the rule though. For example, it might make sense for a "delete" button to be red in a CMS -- but I'd always opt for the most minimalist styling possible (eg JUST the background or text color) so that the user has as much familiarity as possible. I still wouldn't style the pointer.
I personally hate the fact these widgets are styled by the OS, it's the Internet not the OS we are working with! - there should be a standard style defined not by the OS but by all the browsers IMHO.. ;-))
I semi-agree here. Safari is breaking away from standards by not providing ways to style their buttons. However, your original post was about changing the pointer on a button away from the original action as specified by the browsers defaults, or even the OS's defaults.
By doing so, you are decreasing the familiarity of the button to the user in THIER environment.
You seem to be proposing a 'developer recommendation' (to be taken up by some developers), whereas I'd much rather follow a 'w3 recommendation' (which all standards compliant browsers and developers will follow).
Sorry for the long post!
Justin French
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