Mouse-over Madness

One of the innovations on the web is that of the mouse-over. This is where you position the mouse pointer over some image or other widget on a web page and then, without needing to click, some action is performed. The action may be to display an ad, provide the first lines of text of another page, open a new service, and so on.

If it's done well it can greatly improve the web browsing experience. If done poorly it can be hell. By hell I don't mean irritating the user with mouse-over ads; these are easily avoided by going elsewhere. Here I'm referring to intentional behaviour of otherwise reputable sites in delivering desirable content and services.

In my view, a properly-implemented mouse-over should wait before launching any complex action. That is, provide the minimum guard time, even a quarter second, to have some assurance that the user is intending to activate the service. There are web sites out there that will go nuts with activity if the widget so much as gets a hint that the pointer is moving in its general direction from the opposite side of the window.

Those little text boxes with introductions to news stories are not the biggest problem since they minimally interfere with the user's view of the page. Rather it's mouse-overs that launch entirely new content pages or switch you over to a different site or service. It's like I've been arbitrarily transported to a peculiar video game, something like the old Minesweeper game on Windows, where I have to thread among the hidden widgets to get to my real objective without setting them off. Hit one of those mines and you have to waste time shutting down unwanted pop-ups or finding my way back to the original page, and then trying again to do what I want.

Some web designers seem to think this is good practice. It isn't. The objective is not to exercise every new Web 2.0 innovation but to use them sparingly and prudently to improve the user's experience. Please.