It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.
 | Don’t Click It? |
I just finished visiting Don’t Click It, a website dedicated to demonstrating that we don’t need to be clicking the mouse buttons, just dragging the mouse, to accomplish meaningful tasks. The result is an interface at the website in which I can’t provide a context to my actions. Am I just heading over a section I’m not interested in, or am I wanting to focus in on that section? DontClickIt doesn’t know, and so whenever my cursor touches a part of its webpage, the area blooms with moving and enlarging areas, distracting and confusing me. I tried to navigate the website and got lost repeatedly because I accidentally loaded pages I didn’t actually want.
The kicker was in the “Communicate” part of the web page, which offered a form in which I could provide up to 64 characters of feedback. 64 characters? That’s one sentence. Again, so much for context. And here’s where the stylish design really fell apart. I was instructed to fill out the form using “[SHIFT+]TAB, cursor keys” … why? To approximate the function of a mouse click, without which filling out a form is quite difficult.
Yeah, I like my mouse buttons. They let me do exactly what I want without stumbling into doing things I didn’t mean to do. They add dimensions to my online superpowers. Sorry, Don’tClickIt, but I think I still will.
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I use a Mac and I get annoyed enough when my dock activates without my intention. Can’t even imagine an entire desktop like that.
The best part of that site is that the user is actually PUNISHED for clicking. The screen is filled with hideous white noise and you’re forced to explain yourself immediately. Was this an “intentional” click or an “accidental” click? Who are the click police?
Comment by Zerwick — 9/9/2007 @ 1:08 pm
I sort of liked the site. I think it would be a great idea (as it’s much more fun than clicking things and opening new window) if they would try a better layout.
Comment by Joseph — 9/9/2007 @ 5:42 pm
I’m only in favor of fancy technology when it solves a problem. To my mind, there’s no problem with pressing a button on a mouse or touch-pad. My first impression of the site is that it’s silly and annoying.
Comment by Bob S-K — 9/9/2007 @ 9:20 pm