10
votes
Who created the Mac Mickey pointer cursor?
The correct answer is Walt Disney, but tangentially. The Mickey Mouse watch famously used Mickey's hands as clock hands, which seems to be the earliest example I can find of using Mickey's hand as a ...
- 15.6k
9
votes
When to start opening the select list? On mousedown? Or on click? And Why?
From an accessibility point of view, It is recommended that the event should be fired on mouse up rather than on mouse down.
This will be helpful for users with dexterity/motor disabilities, Who ...
- 3,609
7
votes
What is the difference between a mouseover and a hoverover?
From documentation
mouseover(): source
Bind an event handler to the "mouseover" JavaScript event, or trigger that event on an element.
Meaning only when the mouse is over an element.
.hover(): ...
- 3,749
6
votes
Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
Well, the cursor is a pointer, and mimics pointer angles from real life (~30-45° to the vertical).
Importantly, that angle serves to guide the eye down the length of the pointer, in the direction ...
- 10.1k
6
votes
when to use "wait" and when "busy" mouse cursor
This is actually mentioned in the QT docs:
https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qt.html#CursorShape-enum
Wait Cursor: - Usually shown during operations that prevent the user from interacting with the application.
...
- 15.4k
5
votes
Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
The fact that the mouse cursor is slightly tilted to the left makes a lot of sense.
A very interesting fact:
If it were straight, it would take a nanosecond more to place the cursor on the desired ...
- 522
5
votes
Accepted
Do accessibility standards (WCAG AA) require a screen reader to announce an HTML element upon mouse hover?
Two related bugs in NVDA:
NVDA reader doesn't read icon on mouse hover
Windows 11 Design Elements Are Not Reported by NVDA When Mouse Tracking Is On
However, there is nothing in WCAG that requires ...
- 3,327
4
votes
Usability of built-in trackpads in laptops
A touchpad is indeed more awkward to use than a mouse:
MacKenzie IS, Kauppinen T, & Silferberg M, 2001. Accuracy measures for evaluating computer pointing devices. Proceedings of CHI, 3(1), 9-...
- 38.1k
3
votes
Best mouse interaction on knob (dial/rotary controller)
Nielsen&Norman have written this about knobs:
However, virtual knobs are physically challenging to manipulate with
common input devices such as mice and trackpads, which don’t have a
...
- 2,814
3
votes
What's the approppriate term for the window under the mouse cursor?
Edit: You should give these windows names as early as possible, and always use those names to refer to those windows. Whether the names are "Input Window", "Alert Window", or simply "Window A" and "...
- 1,154
3
votes
Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
A straight cursor would also obscure more of the object underneath raising the same issues when designing for touch interfaces
- 161
3
votes
when to use "wait" and when "busy" mouse cursor
As a general rule, the arrow signifies that the user can interact with the UI.
In the "busy" version the arrow is still being displayed, meaning that, while it makes visible that there's some process ...
3
votes
When to start opening the select list? On mousedown? Or on click? And Why?
Sooraj MV is correct that actions are recommended to only be executed on mouse up, however simply opening the Select Input is an action that can be reversed and recovered from, by moving the mouse ...
- 544
2
votes
How can I make it obvious that a page element is to be hovered over?
This might be a little old school, but I have seen lots of old thick GUI applications use a dashed or dotted underline to denote something that has hover text or hover help.
I am doing this very thing ...
- 121
2
votes
How much the scroll wheel should zoom in and out?
In my opinion zooming to a predefined factor will become pretty intuitive for the users regardless of the responsiveness of your app, e.g. I know that zooming three steps down from 100 gets me to 33, ...
- 3,135
2
votes
What is the difference between a mouseover and a hoverover?
Is there a functional difference between the two terms, or are they
identical in meaning?
I think it depends upon who is talking. Most end users will use them interchangeably - which makes sense. As ...
- 6,641
2
votes
Accepted
What does the mouse path tell you about your flow
What you've discovered here are a few areas of interest for your users. Inferring an attempted use from those pieces is rough, but doable. To me, it looks like your users are familiarizing ...
- 1,176
2
votes
Long press action clue/indicator
Changing the color of the column may be too little for the user to know that he have selected something.
Along with the color change, you could display a top toolbar showing how many items the user ...
- 564
2
votes
Why Facebook and Linkedin use a slider to scale/edit users' profile image instead of mouse middle button scrolling?
Requiring the use of the middle mouse button is a bad UX approach, yes, because:
Not everyone has a mouse with a middle button
Not everyone has a mouse (e.g. many laptops, all tablet users)
Not ...
- 121
2
votes
Should a right-click in a desktop application always bring up a context menu?
As a rule fo thumb, users expect UI behavior to follow whatever they have used before. Therefore they would expect the right-click to show contact menu since that's what happens in the browser, in ...
- 5,618
2
votes
Are there common mousing patterns on desktop?
There are couple of common mousing patterns on desktop that reflect how users typically interact with content on a screen.
Other than what you said F and Z pattern (which are applicable even for mouse ...
- 1,516
1
vote
How should double-click (to select text) on a space being handled?
I think the interface should react to the user intention. So if the user select an space, let him select the space. I expect this behavior when I'm selecting text, especially when programming.
I don'...
- 1,904
1
vote
Is it easier to move the mouse from right to left or vice versa?
Depends on the handedness of the user.
70-90% are dominant right handed so you could default the interaction to that.
I'd also allow users to set up the handedness of the interaction "allow drag ...
- 8,260
1
vote
Typical mouse hover position - left or right side of the screen?
The cursor is often used as a guide to support reading. The F-Pattern is the most common reading pattern when scanning a website, so it would be reasonable to infer that the cursor is often in line ...
- 485
1
vote
Best mouse interaction on knob (dial/rotary controller)
garageband for Mac does what you're trying to accomplish, I think. They stick to the Y axis; up turns the knob up, down turns it down. Here's a video of the interaction:
https://youtu.be/LcJwLhRVmyw
1
vote
Keyboard shortcuts for special zoom mode
Z key as a switch-like toggle
No combo modifier, just this key as a mode switch. Once to enter the zoom mode, one more time to exit the zoom mode back to normal mode. A toggle switch.
It's not ...
- 2,278
1
vote
Keyboard shortcuts for special zoom mode
Some random notes:
First of all, you should change the cursor to have a different visual representation in both modes to make clear which one is active. (I suggest a cross hair cursor the user likely ...
- 113
1
vote
Accepted
Long press action clue/indicator
Since the bars have both a click and a long press, i reckon there are a couple of ways to acheive this.
Write a small info note at the end informing the users about the long press
Give some visual ...
- 329
1
vote
What is the best way to indicate a web page element has right click functionality?
It depends on what the UI element is and in what context. If you're providing an element that normally has additional actions associated with it, by not having them readily present/visible the user ...
- 751
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible