[IxDA Discuss] About Double Clicking

[Diego Moya]

For some time now I cherish the hope that web applications will mean
the end of the worse interface idioms from desktop environments. The
worst offenders are windows, double-click, and the overloading of
mouse buttons both for selection and activation. These are source of
many errors and an nuisances to users.

When a system becomes slow responsive, having click and double-click
perform different actions is a pain. Often I click to select an
folder, and since the system is slow I lack visual feedback and click
it again - just to notice that folder renaming has been activated.
I've been caught many times by this one.

The technique described by Jad - activating by clicking a selected
object "with unlimited time in between clicks" - is much better in
usability, and has equal power. I really hope that the visual legacy
of desktop idioms is deprecated and new, simpler languages develop
from the current trend in web applications and touch screens.


On 24/08/06, jackbellis.com <jackbellis at hotmail.com> wrote:
> [Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted material.]
> Second, it says something about the hopeless battle that "Simplicity" wages
> against "Power." (Double-clicking is not simple... it is a hidden technique
> that complicates use.) Users don't "want" and never have "wanted"
> simplicity. Rather, they "expect" things to be as simple as conceivably
> possible. What they (we) always have wanted and will want more and more
> rapidly as the totally-connected generation matures, is power.
>
> All of the things that are powerful in desktops apps will eventually be the
> norm in the browser.