PDF drew my attention to DONTCLICK.IT, an interactive experiment in UI design. Basically it’s what the name implies: don’t click. One click will launch the site for you but after that, everything is accomplished with mouse movement and keystrokes.
My first reaction to this was that of frustration, which I expressed in the discussion Paul and I were having about it. However, he reminded me that it’s only an experiment. With that in mind, it’s an interesting idea, but kind of in the same way a sleep deprivation experiment is (click deprivation?). Of course, people continue to sleep because it’s a fact of life, and for now so is clicking unless certain key fundamentals are addressed:
- The first is the environment in which the clicking is done. Sure, DONTCLICK.IT has demonstrated that it’s perfectly possible to create a website that can function without clicks, but in the age of browsers and (consumer-level) operating systems that rely almost solely on click-click-clicking a site that discourages clicking is more impractical
- The second is the very point of clicking. It creates a more physical bond to the virtual environment that you’re interacting with. If I click and hold on a window to move it, it give the impression of grasping it with my hand, and if I click on an app to launch it, it’s as though I’m pressing a little button to turn it on. It’s a tactile thing, and it makes us feel as though the actions happening on screen are more directly connected to our own commands.
- The final problem is the mouse. Currently this is the weapon of choice for probably 99% of computer users. Yes, you can do a ton of stuff with keystrokes alone (more on some OS’s than others), but not quite everything, especially if you’re planning on actually using applications. If you eliminate clicks, you’re eliminating half of the functionality of the mouse, turning it into something you simply push the cursor around with. If that’s all it’s doing, why have it at all? And if you don’t have a mouse at all, well then damn, you’re just screwed when you go to visit your source for anti-clicking propaganda.
But hey, at the very basic experimental level, it’s interesting. Any more than that and it gets a little obnoxious.
PDF said:
It’s interesting to me because I came across it while considering how to implement different things. What’s good for clicks and what’s not? On Escape Eperil, changing views of the eperils doesn’t require a click and I much prefer it that way. Some image galleries go without clicks and that navigation works to their advantage.
However, a whole site working without clicking doesn’t appeal to me much. Back button?
03:02 on 18 Dec 2005
Andy said:
You’re absolutely right. I think it makes sense to click to get to different pages, but I have no problem with using onMouseover or onClick commands to grab additional information relevant to the page I’m looking at.
The other problem is that the click-free environment relies on Flash, which in my case made it seem more sluggish than just plain old html/clicking pages.
09:22 on 18 Dec 2005
PDF said:
Word. It didn’t seem sluggish to me, but what if it wasn’t Flash? Given browsers’ current DOM capabilities and IE7 finally rendering the alpha channel of a .png image, I’m guessing almost that entire site could be done without Flash and become more accessible. Would that make it more appealing?
An in-page timeline could be created to act as a faux history. Or maybe mouseovers can generate a new http request making the browser history functional and the site bookmarkable. Though chances are it would lead to a lot of unwanted page requests, making it seem even more sluggish.
The fewer clicks seems like something worth looking into for certain applications but there is definitely a point where it becomes too few clicks.
17:02 on 18 Dec 2005