8 ms·

This piece confused me for several reasons. First, if anything, this seems like an accessibility problem that would be hard to solve. Shakiness affects many of

by ceslami 14y ago

This piece confused me for several reasons. First, if anything, this seems like an accessibility problem that would be hard to solve. Shakiness affects many of us as we get older, but it is hard to design a website around this constraint. Second, there is an implication that this ad placement is somehow "surely wrong," and a step further, is likely only successful due to pseudo-fraudulent interactions. I want to rebut this, but she does not actually substantiate it. The most I can say is that the top-left corner of the screen is the hottest hotspot, so placing an ad there is savvy at worst. I too have been reading her blog for a while, but this piece caught me off-guard as awkwardly personal and lacking in substance.

smacktoward 14y ago
Shakiness affects many of us as we get older, but it is hard to design a website around this constraint. Is it? Large link targets surrounded by empty negative space seem like an easy way to solve this problem. The issue is only an issue because Yahoo puts the links in tinytext and crowds the ad link right up next to the "Inbox" link, so a twitch can send the cursor scooting past the link you want to click on to the ad you don't.
- verisimilidude 14y ago
  Large link targets surrounded by empty negative space seem like an easy way to solve this problem. That's correct. Adding a tasteful mouse-over effect also serves as a nice additional visual cue. (Speaking from experience: I have a very shaky hand due to an old injury.)
  - talmand 14y ago
    Just curious, why do you feel a hover effect helps in this situation? As an indicator that the pointer is where you expect it to be? How does the hover effect help in cases of shaking hands that cause the pointer to move upon click? Also, do you use a mouse or trackpad? Seriously, I'm curious.
    - verisimilidude 14y ago
      It's a good question and I'm happy to oblige. First, I use many pointing devices. With my home standing desk, I use an Evoluent vertical mouse. With my workplace sitting desk, I do better with a trackball (it's huge). When I need to take my laptop on the road, I just use the trackpad. They all have their pros and cons depending upon the task at hand. I think the hover effect helps by making the click a more reflex-driven event. Even if my cursor is skittering about a little bit, a mouse-over effect helps the lower parts of my brain "pull the trigger" at the right moment. I'd describe it as a lot like playing an FPS or some other fast-moving action game. Sounds lame and totally unscientific, I know, but I definitely notice the difference.
- talmand 14y ago
  In the example provided the ad link has a decent amount of white space between it and the inbox link. There's even an intended barrier between the two in the form of a horizontal rule, granted one pixel. What more do you want? Are we to ascertain the shakiness level of the user to determine the proper amount of white space? A CSS media query maybe? @media min-shakiness: 0.5 and max-shakiness: 1 But then, I'm just being rude here, sorry. The other case seemingly ignored here is that the clicked link in no way resembles the intended link. Assuming the user can read the link it seems he did not read what he's clicking on. Granted, life puts limitations on us as we get older but I don't understand how one can predict behaviors of people who do not fully read what they are clicking on. There's a great deal to be said about examples of bad design causing people to do things they did not intend, I don't believe this is one of them.
  - smacktoward 14y ago
    In the example provided the ad link has a decent amount of white space between it and the inbox link "Decent" for whom? For you, maybe, because your motor skills are sharp. For those whose aren't, maybe not so much. Are we to ascertain the shakiness level of the user to determine the proper amount of white space? A CSS media query maybe? ...But then, I'm just being rude here, sorry. Yes, you are. Degraded/impaired motor skills aren't just something older people deal with, they come with a range of illnesses and disabilities too. Snarking about a media query for "shakiness" is sort of like a retail store owner snarking about whether he needs to put a camera on his store door to check if people using the ramp are really in wheelchairs. There's even an intended barrier between the two in the form of a horizontal rule.. I don't understand how one can predict behaviors of people who do not fully read what they are clicking on. These comments indicate that you don't really understand the problem we're talking about here. It's not that the user doesn't know the ad link is a different link. It's that she tries to click the link she wants but ends up clicking the ad link accidentally because the close placement of the two links makes it easy for a bump on a trackpad to send a click intended for link A skidding over to link B instead.
    - talmand 14y ago
      Decent for whom is my point. How far down the path do we go before it's a losing proposition? You cannot possibly please everyone and yet people are advocating that we must or be labeled failures. I admitted I was being rude. The point is that we cannot possibly account for every kind of limitation that people may have. We do the best that we can realizing that we cannot account for everything. The only answer to that question is to remove the ad altogether, which is not a solution. Ok, good point, the problem being seeing one spot to click on but clicking on another by accident. Now explain to me exactly how one is supposed to predict that and account for it? Accidental bump on a trackpad is not a problem inherent with the design of the site, it's a problem of the hardware and its usage. It's the same problem with the vertical row of links that belong to the app in question, despite the ad placement. Are we suggesting that the menu links on the left should be separated by at least fifty vertical pixels? So, my original point, what's the optimum distance between two links to avoid accidental clicking due to physical limitations and hardware problems? There is no way to determine that. The example given of Google using low contrast colors to separate search results from ads is a good example of taking advantage. This Yahoo example is not because the two links in question do have a noticeable separation and do not bear any resemblance to each other. People clicking on spot fully expecting that they are clicking on another is a completely different topic and is not indicative that Yahoo is taking advantage of anyone. How can one claim that Yahoo is somehow taking advantage of people by tricking them into clicking on ads that are "close" to an intended link? What exactly do they benefit from this?
eli 14y ago
I bought a mouse a decade ago for my grandma that was specifically for people with movement disorders. It's got nice ergonomics and a little microprocessor that runs some sort of smoothing algorithm to cancel out unintended jerky movements. Worked pretty well.
- shawndumas 14y ago
  a link (or a non-generic search term) please and thanks.
  - eli 14y ago
    Sorry, it's been a while. I think this might be it (or at least some version of it) http://www.montrosesecam.com/Products.html http://www.montrosesecam.com/Products.html

by ceslami 14y ago

smacktoward 14y ago

Shakiness affects many of us as we get older, but it is hard to design a website around this constraint. Is it? Large link targets surrounded by empty negative space seem like an easy way to solve this problem. The issue is only an issue because Yahoo puts the links in tinytext and crowds the ad link right up next to the "Inbox" link, so a twitch can send the cursor scooting past the link you want to click on to the ad you don't.

verisimilidude 14y ago
Large link targets surrounded by empty negative space seem like an easy way to solve this problem. That's correct. Adding a tasteful mouse-over effect also serves as a nice additional visual cue. (Speaking from experience: I have a very shaky hand due to an old injury.)
- talmand 14y ago
  Just curious, why do you feel a hover effect helps in this situation? As an indicator that the pointer is where you expect it to be? How does the hover effect help in cases of shaking hands that cause the pointer to move upon click? Also, do you use a mouse or trackpad? Seriously, I'm curious.
  - verisimilidude 14y ago
    It's a good question and I'm happy to oblige. First, I use many pointing devices. With my home standing desk, I use an Evoluent vertical mouse. With my workplace sitting desk, I do better with a trackball (it's huge). When I need to take my laptop on the road, I just use the trackpad. They all have their pros and cons depending upon the task at hand. I think the hover effect helps by making the click a more reflex-driven event. Even if my cursor is skittering about a little bit, a mouse-over effect helps the lower parts of my brain "pull the trigger" at the right moment. I'd describe it as a lot like playing an FPS or some other fast-moving action game. Sounds lame and totally unscientific, I know, but I definitely notice the difference.
talmand 14y ago
In the example provided the ad link has a decent amount of white space between it and the inbox link. There's even an intended barrier between the two in the form of a horizontal rule, granted one pixel. What more do you want? Are we to ascertain the shakiness level of the user to determine the proper amount of white space? A CSS media query maybe? @media min-shakiness: 0.5 and max-shakiness: 1 But then, I'm just being rude here, sorry. The other case seemingly ignored here is that the clicked link in no way resembles the intended link. Assuming the user can read the link it seems he did not read what he's clicking on. Granted, life puts limitations on us as we get older but I don't understand how one can predict behaviors of people who do not fully read what they are clicking on. There's a great deal to be said about examples of bad design causing people to do things they did not intend, I don't believe this is one of them.
- smacktoward 14y ago
  In the example provided the ad link has a decent amount of white space between it and the inbox link "Decent" for whom? For you, maybe, because your motor skills are sharp. For those whose aren't, maybe not so much. Are we to ascertain the shakiness level of the user to determine the proper amount of white space? A CSS media query maybe? ...But then, I'm just being rude here, sorry. Yes, you are. Degraded/impaired motor skills aren't just something older people deal with, they come with a range of illnesses and disabilities too. Snarking about a media query for "shakiness" is sort of like a retail store owner snarking about whether he needs to put a camera on his store door to check if people using the ramp are really in wheelchairs. There's even an intended barrier between the two in the form of a horizontal rule.. I don't understand how one can predict behaviors of people who do not fully read what they are clicking on. These comments indicate that you don't really understand the problem we're talking about here. It's not that the user doesn't know the ad link is a different link. It's that she tries to click the link she wants but ends up clicking the ad link accidentally because the close placement of the two links makes it easy for a bump on a trackpad to send a click intended for link A skidding over to link B instead.
  - talmand 14y ago
    Decent for whom is my point. How far down the path do we go before it's a losing proposition? You cannot possibly please everyone and yet people are advocating that we must or be labeled failures. I admitted I was being rude. The point is that we cannot possibly account for every kind of limitation that people may have. We do the best that we can realizing that we cannot account for everything. The only answer to that question is to remove the ad altogether, which is not a solution. Ok, good point, the problem being seeing one spot to click on but clicking on another by accident. Now explain to me exactly how one is supposed to predict that and account for it? Accidental bump on a trackpad is not a problem inherent with the design of the site, it's a problem of the hardware and its usage. It's the same problem with the vertical row of links that belong to the app in question, despite the ad placement. Are we suggesting that the menu links on the left should be separated by at least fifty vertical pixels? So, my original point, what's the optimum distance between two links to avoid accidental clicking due to physical limitations and hardware problems? There is no way to determine that. The example given of Google using low contrast colors to separate search results from ads is a good example of taking advantage. This Yahoo example is not because the two links in question do have a noticeable separation and do not bear any resemblance to each other. People clicking on spot fully expecting that they are clicking on another is a completely different topic and is not indicative that Yahoo is taking advantage of anyone. How can one claim that Yahoo is somehow taking advantage of people by tricking them into clicking on ads that are "close" to an intended link? What exactly do they benefit from this?

eli 14y ago

I bought a mouse a decade ago for my grandma that was specifically for people with movement disorders. It's got nice ergonomics and a little microprocessor that runs some sort of smoothing algorithm to cancel out unintended jerky movements. Worked pretty well.

shawndumas 14y ago
a link (or a non-generic search term) please and thanks.
- eli 14y ago
  Sorry, it's been a while. I think this might be it (or at least some version of it) http://www.montrosesecam.com/Products.html http://www.montrosesecam.com/Products.html