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Posted by Gιrard Talbot on 11/02/70 11:43
dorayme wrote :
> In article <48p61nFkmmdhU1@uni-berlin.de>,
> GΓ©rard Talbot <newsblahgroup@gtalbot.org> wrote:
>
>> ...I personally strongly recommend that you do not remove the
>> border on a clickable image (also called/referred as reactive image)
>> because such border may be the only thing revealing easily and visually
>> to the user that it is a clickable image. A link or clickable image
>> should always be easy to recognize as such.
>
> Why would you "strongly recommend" something because something
> else "may" be the case? It is for good reason that so many people
> ask how to remove these ugly border (as you rightly point out
> they do).
>
For efficiency, consistency and usability reasons. The user should not
even have to think half a second on whether this image is clickable or
not when viewing that image. Vincent Flanders, Jakob Nielsen and lots of
usability and web experience gurus all agree on this.
> There are other ways to indicate that they are clickable.
>
But they are not the most obvious, immediately recognizable ways;
Nielsen refers to "maximum perceived affordance for clickability".
> Sometimes, they are just obviously clickable as in a list of
> thumbnails even without the words "Click on the following to
> enlarge" or to that effect.
>
> Sometimes it is better to have that than a million ugly bordered
> thumbnails.
>
Sometimes, people exaggerate the ugliness they see and underestimate
visual efficiency, practical consistency of site design from an user's
perspective. Remember that a web author usually knows very well his own
web site; a first time visitor may not and he will be reliably helped by
a blue border around an image.
> Sometimes, it does not matter whether they are known beforehand
> to be clickable. This surprises?
Most of the time, for a very wide majority of websites, it is in the
best interests of the web author and in the best interests of the
visitors that clickable images be easily known beforehand to be
clickable. Of course, there are exceptions where it may matter less.
Think, maybe there is a very
> clear other way to link and this is just anextra facility. Or
> maybe just a nice surprise. Is there no room for subtlety? For
> surprise?
>
I've seen several Flash-based sites which were like that: I failed to
notice what was clickable. In fact, I didn't even think (didn't become
aware) there was an element over here or over there which was clickable
in the webpage.
> Next you will be telling folk to underline all their links!
Browser manufacturers have already decided so: the default value for
links is to underline them.
> beware of joining the army talibaning their way through the
> streets of html <wicked grin... >
>
Talibaning? Your comment is over-excessively exaggerated. Going against
web design consistency won't improve user experience: it'll be the
reverse for a very wide majority of webpages and types of websites.
Same thing with dotted focus lines (or outlines) when a link get
focused. Newbies often want to remove such dotted focus outlines but
they don't realize that doing so makes their webpage less accessible and
less usable. And on this, no one can seriously bring up the ugliness of
those borders.
GΓ©rard
--
remove blah to email me
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