Don't Click It(dontclick.it)
dontclick.it
Don't Click It
http://www.dontclick.it
26 comments
Interesting site, but I really cannot understand why the mouse click is a "bad" thing. Having pages do nothing unless you explicitly click is a great thing, that site showed me exactly how annoying it can be to control an interface that wants to rearrange itself all the time based on mouse movements. Moving the mouse to a link and having the link move AWAY because you happened to move across one of the links between it and your mouse is simply annoying.
Exactly, when scrolling though a list the first item stays on the top and the next item on the bottom. This is a horrible interface. They could "improve" it by having a navigation area, and a viewable area as separate things, but then you need to exit the navigation area to get to the next stage. But, then you need a complex mouse movement to exit the navigation area and get to where you want to be. The true value of a click is the clear delineation that this is what I want.
On the other hand it looks cool.
On the other hand it looks cool.
Interface tries to intelligently rearrange itself, and ends up annoying user? Reminds me of that old MS Office "feature" of hiding unused menu items, which bugged me like crazy.
Yeah, it really makes me feel paranoid that the item I want will be hidden when the menu is shown, so I always expanded it (until I turned it off entirely).
I'm probably the only one who feels the same way about hidden tooltray icons, too, but I usually expose them all on Windows.
I'm probably the only one who feels the same way about hidden tooltray icons, too, but I usually expose them all on Windows.
IMHO there is nothing here intrinsically better about the experience - what they seem to have done is simply take a good old Flash interface and ripped out the click and replaced it with mouseover events.
Sorry, but I think you have to go a few steps further if you really want to seamlessly eliminate the click (which begs the question: why?).
The UI was annoying - the same UI that I've run into for the new Sims game - an over-reliance on mouse-over events, popping menus in and out of existence based on minute, often accidental motion. You have no idea how hard it is to, say, buy a bed and choose the wood finish for your Sim, just because the UI sucks.
Sorry, but I think you have to go a few steps further if you really want to seamlessly eliminate the click (which begs the question: why?).
The UI was annoying - the same UI that I've run into for the new Sims game - an over-reliance on mouse-over events, popping menus in and out of existence based on minute, often accidental motion. You have no idea how hard it is to, say, buy a bed and choose the wood finish for your Sim, just because the UI sucks.
There is a case when clicking is bad: in some mouseless interfaces like those based on computer vision. I once worked on one of those and had the user freely move his hand over the space to explore some icons (while having a VR headset covering his head). This interface would have been ideal for such kind of project, really.
They're not suggesting click is bad. It's the equivalent of link-bait: An excuse to get you to try their mouse-over.
...which I consider annoying eye-candy. Eye candy that melt and drips uncontrollably for that matter. For me the reaction is more like the other who complained of motion sickness. For this user, please leave menu bars static (unless you're expanding content: like drop-down or slide-out menus). I'd rather have flashing, hopping ads in my peripheral vision (which I can tune out), that menus zipping around like eye-floaters.
[Sorry, maybe you caught me in a bad mood, but my mood tends to become bad when purposeless complexity (especially moving) intrudes.]
...which I consider annoying eye-candy. Eye candy that melt and drips uncontrollably for that matter. For me the reaction is more like the other who complained of motion sickness. For this user, please leave menu bars static (unless you're expanding content: like drop-down or slide-out menus). I'd rather have flashing, hopping ads in my peripheral vision (which I can tune out), that menus zipping around like eye-floaters.
[Sorry, maybe you caught me in a bad mood, but my mood tends to become bad when purposeless complexity (especially moving) intrudes.]
Perhaps they couldn't get the domain http://automaticallyclickeverythingfor.me ?
I mean really, it's just like using a normal UI while maniacally clicking as fast as possible. Every nav item you hover over gets selected. Every text field gets entered. Every button you move past gets pressed. It's like that Atari 2600 joystick with the "autofire" switch.
I went through their alternative button ideas. Two of them I "clicked" unintentionally. One of the I couldn't get to "click" at all.
All in all, they've successfully proved that this is a bad idea.
I mean really, it's just like using a normal UI while maniacally clicking as fast as possible. Every nav item you hover over gets selected. Every text field gets entered. Every button you move past gets pressed. It's like that Atari 2600 joystick with the "autofire" switch.
I went through their alternative button ideas. Two of them I "clicked" unintentionally. One of the I couldn't get to "click" at all.
All in all, they've successfully proved that this is a bad idea.
Made me motion sick, but I am prone to such things. I hate actions on mouse over. Mousing over is the byproduct of what I actually want to do, which is select things. Having an ever-present, single, cursor is a huge limitation of interfaces. Using mouse-over as the primary interface modality reinforces this limitation.
Edit: the subtle change in color or background that shows the potential for activation is an exception to hating mouse-over responses.
Edit: the subtle change in color or background that shows the potential for activation is an exception to hating mouse-over responses.
Since the "don't click" style of interface is diametrically opposed to the very idea of selecting text to copy and paste (well, unless they rework it to use key commands from text editors) I have to screenshot and transcribe this from the site:
"DONTCLICK.IT is the final artwork of the author's diploma in Communication Design at the University Essen-Duisburg, Germany."
I was wondering who on earth would research user interfaces that diametrically oppose the instincts and conditioned behaviors of nearly all computer users. Now it suddenly makes sense.
This isn't to say it isn't cool or interesting, but it seems awful in usability terms.
"DONTCLICK.IT is the final artwork of the author's diploma in Communication Design at the University Essen-Duisburg, Germany."
I was wondering who on earth would research user interfaces that diametrically oppose the instincts and conditioned behaviors of nearly all computer users. Now it suddenly makes sense.
This isn't to say it isn't cool or interesting, but it seems awful in usability terms.
Last time I saw this I was in a lot of pain from RSI, it hurt to click on things. I spent a long time looking to see if somebody had found a way to replace the Mac OS X buttons with "no click" buttons like they have on that site.
Next I looked to see if I could find software that would let me use a key on my keyboard as a mouse click. I didn't find anything that seemed easy or free...
Next I looked to see if I could find software that would let me use a key on my keyboard as a mouse click. I didn't find anything that seemed easy or free...
I liked it first, using a eeepc and only thouchpad it was comfortable, then I tried some of the labs stuff and got disappointed.
I realize that there are some hardwired behaviours on how I interact. 1) I keep hitting :q or ZZ in anything that looks like a texteditor, even in emacs. 2) I keep hitting ctrl-a on every line that have a cursor. 3) wsad and boomstick on 1 and rocketlaucher on 2
I don't think that I should be the reference for how a user should interact with a specific program or site. There are some areas where you could minimize the number of clicks like we have now days more or less removed the use of dialogues and wizardzzzzz.
Mouse and clicks are good but a thouchpad interface maybe should not pretend to be a mouse.
I know that HN is leaning more or less to web user interface but there are actually still a number of usage of interfaces to computer[programs] that don't is a browser or the toplevel GUI of your OS.
I guess there is some site where those making all these kinds of new games to DS,PS?,XBOX? discuss more or less the same kind of things but from a different angle.
My kinds don't look for wsad , the look for a stylus or the stick. The don't click instead they press X or blue button.
If I have a point at all, it must be that when your used to something it is a hard to relearn but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Take what you like and make it better.
I realize that there are some hardwired behaviours on how I interact. 1) I keep hitting :q or ZZ in anything that looks like a texteditor, even in emacs. 2) I keep hitting ctrl-a on every line that have a cursor. 3) wsad and boomstick on 1 and rocketlaucher on 2
I don't think that I should be the reference for how a user should interact with a specific program or site. There are some areas where you could minimize the number of clicks like we have now days more or less removed the use of dialogues and wizardzzzzz.
Mouse and clicks are good but a thouchpad interface maybe should not pretend to be a mouse.
I know that HN is leaning more or less to web user interface but there are actually still a number of usage of interfaces to computer[programs] that don't is a browser or the toplevel GUI of your OS.
I guess there is some site where those making all these kinds of new games to DS,PS?,XBOX? discuss more or less the same kind of things but from a different angle.
My kinds don't look for wsad , the look for a stylus or the stick. The don't click instead they press X or blue button.
If I have a point at all, it must be that when your used to something it is a hard to relearn but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Take what you like and make it better.
One day I hope I'll be able to "natively" browse the internet, graphics, videos and all... in a terminal window, or, something fully compatible with Vim/Emacs bindings.
Like vimperator? I use it, and I love it. In fact, I'm thinking about moving to a windows manager such as awesome or Xmonad for a completely mouseless experience.
Vimperator - http://vimperator.mozdev.org
Awesome - http://awesome.naquadah.org/
Xmonad - http://www.xmonad.org
Vimperator - http://vimperator.mozdev.org
Awesome - http://awesome.naquadah.org/
Xmonad - http://www.xmonad.org
There's also Ratpoison - http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/
There's Conkeror (http://conkeror.org) which is like a minimal Firefox with Emacs bindings.
Our company makes a virtual tour player, and we recently spent a lot of time testing UI's for ease-of-use for a one-time user. Demo: http://tourbuzz.net/2392
We tried to eliminate a lot of clicking, and it completely backfired.
Why? Because people move the mouse to "explore". Just like in real world if you're in front of a vending machine or a menu, people like to "half point" at things to help them focus and get their bearings.
The idea of an interface without clicks is horrible. People feel trapped when they can't explore by moving the mouse around without consequence.
Also, people have been trained for 25 years to click on things. Heck most people can barely stand to single-click things! At this point my mom doesn't even realize you can single-click things and she effectively double-clicks everything.
Thus, if that demo is anything other than an experiment to make the points above it's a horrible idea.
We tried to eliminate a lot of clicking, and it completely backfired.
Why? Because people move the mouse to "explore". Just like in real world if you're in front of a vending machine or a menu, people like to "half point" at things to help them focus and get their bearings.
The idea of an interface without clicks is horrible. People feel trapped when they can't explore by moving the mouse around without consequence.
Also, people have been trained for 25 years to click on things. Heck most people can barely stand to single-click things! At this point my mom doesn't even realize you can single-click things and she effectively double-clicks everything.
Thus, if that demo is anything other than an experiment to make the points above it's a horrible idea.
Using an eeepc with Ubuntu, the screen will dim after a couple of minutes without clicking. That's more a problem with Ubuntu's energy saving (or maybe the eeepc-specific kernel I'm running) than with the site, but it does underscore the presumption of clicking being linked to interfacing (scrolling does not keep the machine from starting the energy saving process - only clicking).
The site is a neat experiment, but I can't help but feel that most users are conditioned enough from previous flash sites and non-flash rollover actions (drop downs, tool tips, etc) that they would find it easy not to click.
The animation was more than a little sluggish on this poor atom processor. It could have been more effective and less distracting had the animations been limited to rollover/click interactions. I guess that's the case with most flash sites. I'd like to see the site executed using html and javascript.
The site is a neat experiment, but I can't help but feel that most users are conditioned enough from previous flash sites and non-flash rollover actions (drop downs, tool tips, etc) that they would find it easy not to click.
The animation was more than a little sluggish on this poor atom processor. It could have been more effective and less distracting had the animations been limited to rollover/click interactions. I guess that's the case with most flash sites. I'd like to see the site executed using html and javascript.
Well, I hate flash and those popup link things because they break my learned work flow.
I use the mouse to keep track of where I am in the text, to highlight, pop links into new windows, do Google searches and most importantly as an outlet for my ADD/OCD.
So when the interface starts doing random stuff I get forcibly removed from my concentration.
I am not against this kind of thing, but it belongs in certain specific places with lots of warnings before it happens and an opt-out if you expect me to use your site.
I like the idea to reduce clicking, but eliminating it seems to create more confusion than easiness. On the other side, maybe it will be cool to have a mouse which doesn't need force to click- maybe that would reduce RSI (I am not specialist and cannot say for sure). For example what if the mouse had touchpad instead of buttons?
As a programmer it does make me rethink the interface design concept. I really liked the whole timed button idea where you need to leave the mouse pointer on a button for a few seconds while a progress bars slowly activate the button. That could be a step towards elimanating spam or drunk emails.
This would work a lot better if the mouse pointer was hidden when not in motion.
The problem I had with it was when I moved my mouse to read the text underneath the pointer, I would occasionally leave the target area and have it disappear out from under me.
The problem I had with it was when I moved my mouse to read the text underneath the pointer, I would occasionally leave the target area and have it disappear out from under me.
I was at the Maker Faire last Saturday and there was a company that had a true multi-touch screen that was very large ( something like 20" ). I can see how this would be useful when using a touch interface: I would not want to tap the screen. Great work!
Neat idea - I kind of like the mouseover awesomeness of Windows 7 which this in concept reminds me of. But I couldn't do without clicking - it's a tactile confirmation.
Something that I think is similar is dwell-clicking software (for disabled people, I think--just like the one-handle faucet).
quite old but its a really good experiment, while clicking seems fine for now, its a nightmare a lot of the time on touch screen interfaces, even clicking with my trackpad is annoying.
while its not completely without its annoyances, considering the limitations it handles itself pretty well, and is certainly a worthwhile experiment.
while its not completely without its annoyances, considering the limitations it handles itself pretty well, and is certainly a worthwhile experiment.
It was a very good experiment; it proved to me it's a bad idea and could never work. No sarcasm. Negative results are results.
It's demo-ware. Part of what I mean by that term are things that look good in the demo, but it turns out the demo is pushing the idea to the very limits. A demo of a good idea by necessity can only scratch the surface, not exhaust the idea. With demoware, it only works as long as you don't bring the idea into contact with the real world. It looks great as long as you stay in demoland, but that's it. See also: Purely visual general-purpose programming languages, 3D avatar-based chatting (not a game that also functions as a limited chat room, pure 3D chat).
It's demo-ware. Part of what I mean by that term are things that look good in the demo, but it turns out the demo is pushing the idea to the very limits. A demo of a good idea by necessity can only scratch the surface, not exhaust the idea. With demoware, it only works as long as you don't bring the idea into contact with the real world. It looks great as long as you stay in demoland, but that's it. See also: Purely visual general-purpose programming languages, 3D avatar-based chatting (not a game that also functions as a limited chat room, pure 3D chat).
it didnt prove that to me at all.
see the iphone, a usual way of scrolling it to click somewhere around the scrollbar, that obviously sucks especially on a small touch screen, so they use clickless gestures.
while this experiment may not have directly influenced the iphone devs, it may have, and its in the same direction.
our interfaces are terrible at the moment, anything that pushes innovation into smarter ways of working with computers is good in my book.
I do agree that as a demo they pushed it to its limits, and that a lot of the cases its impractical, but there are positive lessons to be learnt that can be applied in real situations (like the iphone)
see the iphone, a usual way of scrolling it to click somewhere around the scrollbar, that obviously sucks especially on a small touch screen, so they use clickless gestures.
while this experiment may not have directly influenced the iphone devs, it may have, and its in the same direction.
our interfaces are terrible at the moment, anything that pushes innovation into smarter ways of working with computers is good in my book.
I do agree that as a demo they pushed it to its limits, and that a lot of the cases its impractical, but there are positive lessons to be learnt that can be applied in real situations (like the iphone)
"they use clickless gestures."
This is some fantastic new definition of "clickless" which I have been previously unaware of. You never remove your finger from the surface of your iPhone? I think you may be doing it wrong.
This is some fantastic new definition of "clickless" which I have been previously unaware of. You never remove your finger from the surface of your iPhone? I think you may be doing it wrong.
urm, I dont see what that has to do with the scroll gestures, unless you count swiping your finger across the screen as "clicking", which it isnt
You're sort of right, but not in the direction you think you are. Finger swipes and gestures carry more information than clicking. The entire point of the clickless interface is for the user to convey less information that clicking; as I've referred to it in another context, the author believes that the solution to the problems of "point and grunt" interfaces is to reduce it to a "point" interface.
Modern mouse interfaces actually have more types of grunts (like the relatively recent scrollwheel innovation), and the iPhone multitouch is a way to get several types of grunts onto a touchscreen that previous had just tap and drag. Totally the opposite direction from this demo. If the iPhone developers carried anything away from this Flash demo, it was to head further away from this approach.
Interestingly, I was about to post a conclusion to this post based on how nobody has ever adopted this interface for anything, but I just realized that as of yesterday (in the US), I am wrong. Totally serious. The new DS game Knights in the Nightmare uses this interface for combat. It is adapted to the touchscreen by making a persistent cursor that simply stays still if you remove the stylus (which in general is a bad idea in the game), and if you then touch some other part of the screen, the cursor will head straight for it with a maximum speed (so no teleporting around the screen). Weapons are deployed with dragging, commands are triggered with hovering and some light gesturing, and so on. It's interesting, but it's also a decent demonstration of why you don't want to use this for serious work. It's one thing when you trigger the wrong unit in a game, it's quite another when you delete the wrong file.
Metacritic page for the game: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ds/knightsinthenig...
So, if you want to see who's right, you can now go try this interface out for a real product.
Modern mouse interfaces actually have more types of grunts (like the relatively recent scrollwheel innovation), and the iPhone multitouch is a way to get several types of grunts onto a touchscreen that previous had just tap and drag. Totally the opposite direction from this demo. If the iPhone developers carried anything away from this Flash demo, it was to head further away from this approach.
Interestingly, I was about to post a conclusion to this post based on how nobody has ever adopted this interface for anything, but I just realized that as of yesterday (in the US), I am wrong. Totally serious. The new DS game Knights in the Nightmare uses this interface for combat. It is adapted to the touchscreen by making a persistent cursor that simply stays still if you remove the stylus (which in general is a bad idea in the game), and if you then touch some other part of the screen, the cursor will head straight for it with a maximum speed (so no teleporting around the screen). Weapons are deployed with dragging, commands are triggered with hovering and some light gesturing, and so on. It's interesting, but it's also a decent demonstration of why you don't want to use this for serious work. It's one thing when you trigger the wrong unit in a game, it's quite another when you delete the wrong file.
Metacritic page for the game: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ds/knightsinthenig...
So, if you want to see who's right, you can now go try this interface out for a real product.
its getting late so cant reply properly, but
I dont believe the clickless interface is trying to make the user convey less information, but instead its trying to interpret information the user is already conveying in a smarter way, so they dont have to produce redundant information (the clicks).
Im sure I know of one or two good uses of this in practice, but its late and they arent coming to me right now.
I dont believe the clickless interface is trying to make the user convey less information, but instead its trying to interpret information the user is already conveying in a smarter way, so they dont have to produce redundant information (the clicks).
Im sure I know of one or two good uses of this in practice, but its late and they arent coming to me right now.
"I dont believe the clickless interface is trying to make the user convey less information,"
This is a matter of information theory. It is an objective fact that only moving a mouse provides less information than a mouse that can also click. That is also why using this inferface is slower than using a conventional interface; you have to convey the same number of bits, but you have a smaller bandwidth to do it in. It is also, now that I think about it, a relatively decent explanation of why I consider this demoware; cutting down the bandwidth from human to computer certainly does have the effect of simplifying the interface, but only by slowing the user down and constraining the amount of information that can be extracted from the user. Throw this interface at a real problem with even more bits needing to be extracted from the user and the problems and slowdown will only compound. I don't think that most of us are looking to be slowed down.
In that entire paragraph, only that last sentence is opinion. The rest is a very simple application of information theory.
If you feel like you have to argue with that fact, I suggest brushing up on your information theory first. I'm not kidding about the objective fact bit. If you'd like to argue that interfaces should be based on reducing the amount of information extracted from the user, feel free, that is a conceivable argument, but it certainly flies in the face of experience and current interface developments.
(By the way, why am I being so harsh? It's education, albeit more for the audience than anybody else. Liking this interface as art is great, heck even I think it's sort of cool that way, but thinking it's actually a useful revolution is a sign that you are applying very weak thought processes to the idea, and it's helpful to see things like the simple application of information theory to the topic.)
This is a matter of information theory. It is an objective fact that only moving a mouse provides less information than a mouse that can also click. That is also why using this inferface is slower than using a conventional interface; you have to convey the same number of bits, but you have a smaller bandwidth to do it in. It is also, now that I think about it, a relatively decent explanation of why I consider this demoware; cutting down the bandwidth from human to computer certainly does have the effect of simplifying the interface, but only by slowing the user down and constraining the amount of information that can be extracted from the user. Throw this interface at a real problem with even more bits needing to be extracted from the user and the problems and slowdown will only compound. I don't think that most of us are looking to be slowed down.
In that entire paragraph, only that last sentence is opinion. The rest is a very simple application of information theory.
If you feel like you have to argue with that fact, I suggest brushing up on your information theory first. I'm not kidding about the objective fact bit. If you'd like to argue that interfaces should be based on reducing the amount of information extracted from the user, feel free, that is a conceivable argument, but it certainly flies in the face of experience and current interface developments.
(By the way, why am I being so harsh? It's education, albeit more for the audience than anybody else. Liking this interface as art is great, heck even I think it's sort of cool that way, but thinking it's actually a useful revolution is a sign that you are applying very weak thought processes to the idea, and it's helpful to see things like the simple application of information theory to the topic.)
"In that entire paragraph, only that last sentence is opinion. The rest is a very simple application of information theory."
urm, only the first sentence is an "objective fact", the rest is your opinion and fuzzy attempts at reasoning, if you are going to patronise, please be right.
while its true that the interface is sending less information, its entirely your opinion that there is not enough information already being sent by the user to determine what exactly they want to do.
thousands of people have installed mouse gesture plugins, the xbox natal project looks to be an entirely gesture driven, the idea that this type of interface is pie in the sky "art", as opposed to a useful experiment is well, wrong.
I usually wouldnt mind discussing this more but you have pretty much put me off any further conversation.
and please note I said "worthwhile experiment", not "revolutionary"
urm, only the first sentence is an "objective fact", the rest is your opinion and fuzzy attempts at reasoning, if you are going to patronise, please be right.
while its true that the interface is sending less information, its entirely your opinion that there is not enough information already being sent by the user to determine what exactly they want to do.
thousands of people have installed mouse gesture plugins, the xbox natal project looks to be an entirely gesture driven, the idea that this type of interface is pie in the sky "art", as opposed to a useful experiment is well, wrong.
I usually wouldnt mind discussing this more but you have pretty much put me off any further conversation.
and please note I said "worthwhile experiment", not "revolutionary"
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Very pretentious. Too much movement.
Great marketing for a student project. Clever and fun. Not practical... but it doesn't have to be, it's a combination research / art project / thesis / marketing stunt. And in those senses, it works very well.
Gotta explore the unthinkable to come up with new things to think...
Gotta explore the unthinkable to come up with new things to think...
It made me calm, like medidation (or medication?). I guess I like it. I can imagine to have something like that for an ebook-reader style app.
I can't wait until I can navigate the internet using ERPs!
its fucking horrible... Just mouse-overs and shit moving my mouse is no longer possible to just keep track of where im reading, instead i can't stop shit from radically changing on me. Most of the time shit was just popping out without a click or anything. Very annoying I could not use it for more than 1 minute.
Can someone please correct the title so I don't have to stare at crappy english at the top of my HN page?