Wednesday, January 28, 2009

More wacky UI design

Today I had to fill out a form online. The organization in question had helpfully provided a URL, which I duly typed in to my browser (just like section 2.2 of the RFC suggests).

On the page was a nice big box labeled "FooForm Online". Pointing at the box was an arrow. At the other end of the arrow was the text "Click here," underlined.

What to do? Click on the underlined text, which looks for all the world like the usual "Click here" link, or ... click on the large box with the arrow pointing to it that says to click there? Or will either work?

It turns out that in this case it's the "click here" text (only) that works. It's easy enough to figure out, and pretty harmless in any case, but ... Huh? What's the point of decorating your "Click here" link with an arrow pointing to a large box that doesn't work?

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