5 ms·
Bubble Cursor Bookmarklet
- amadiver 16y agoWhat does this help with?
- thenduks 16y agoIt is a bit non-obvious. Check out the demo linked, and turn on timing mode. Now try to click the blue circle (it moves after each click) as fast as possible. Turn on and off the bubble cursor mode and see if your time changes. TL;DR: It allows you to be less accurate with the mouse because the nearest target is auto-highlighted. I could see it being useful for someone that has a hard time controlling the mouse accurately, either from some kind of physical limitation or inexperience. Also: http://uiobservatory.com/2010/the-bubble-cursor-in-action/ http://uiobservatory.com/2010/the-bubble-cursor-in-action/
- gojomo 16y agoCool. I've assumed touchscreen UIs used something like this, within certain tolerance limits, to make it easier to click small targets.
- Groxx 16y agoA bit odd that it doesn't even work on their page: http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/9783/oddity.jpg http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/9783/oddity.jpg
- president 16y agoare you sure? press 'B' to see the bubble, otherwise it just highlights the links.
- Groxx 16y agoDid you check the screenshot? The grey circle is the cursor, and the blue-highlighted link is what it thinks is closest. All three of those underlined phrases are links, but it gets it massively wrong when it's near the mid-left of the three.
- president 16y agoSorry, I missed it in a rush earlier. But the cursor is accurate for me.
- Stuk 16y agoHi, I'm the author. I haven't seen that behaviour before. Would you mind telling me which browser/OS you're using?
- Groxx 16y agoHappens reliably for me, with other odd behaviors on other sites (not all). Safari 5.0.2 on an up-to-date OSX 10.6. I could record a screencast, if you'd like, though I'll try cleaning things up first. An extension / the fact that I haven't shut down Safari in 4 days could be messing something up.
- houseabsolute 16y agoCool. Unfortunately I can't use it because I have this nervous tic where I click all over the page randomly.
- twodayslate 16y agoSame. I have the problem of highlighting text constantly. It drives everyone I know crazy.
- alanh 16y ago“Cool” but the fact there are no dead zones, and lots of spots where a pixel or two nudge (easy to do by accident) means you’re clicking a different link than the one you were about to a pixel ago, give me great pause. (And of course this would be more “useful” as an extension or userscript than bookmarklet; clicking a bookmarklet to lazy-click links is a weak value proposition, naturally.)
- Groxx 16y agoThat's the massive downside to every implementation of bubble cursors / something similar I've yet seen. I'll label them "naive" implementations, because they're so mindlessly implemented: it selects the nearest clickable item, with no respect for any relation to movement or chaotic spots where you can select different things with single pixel movements. Though I do see that this could be useful once they're more polished. I just don't get why everyone's drinking the same implementation kool-aid, rather than seeking to improve on it.
- Stuk 16y agoHi, I just put this together quickly to see what it feels like when used on a web page rather than an artificial environment, it wasn't intended as a fully featured interaction method. In fact even while playing around with it myself I found it frustrating that I couldn't click anywhere without following a link, and you're right that the implementation is very naive. This was just a bit of fun which I wanted to put out there. Hopefully that explains why it isn't perfect :)
- Groxx 16y agoWasn't a rant against your implementation, just that every one I've seen is a mirror image of the others, with only one variable: whether your pointer determines an edge of the circle - thereby making it harder to determine where it'll jump to - or it determines the center of the circle - making it harder to aim. There's gotta be a better way, because the concept is excellent.
- astrofinch 16y ago