Roy Osherove

View Original

Death to the double-click (a lesson in design)

Why do today's mice still have "Double Click" functionality?

In terms of interaction design - its one of the worst forms of design ever created; You have one button which does different things at different circumstances. not only that, but those circumstances are not easily comprehensible, they are more of the "touchy feely" kind and thus many people fail to use them correctly. The action of the button depends on how fast you can move your finger. How's that for "designed with human considerations"?

It's one of the most annoying tasks to be performed by a human, and sometimes people just fail miserably at achieving this "simple" task. click too slowly and you'll start editing a file name, click too fast and you'll soon have a muscle cramps.

Logitech first came out witha "revolutionary" software that allows one to configure one of their mouse buttons to be used as as "double click". You could make your thum double click on files etc. Microsoft soon followed. You even have various system properties that you can configure to set the desired length of time between single clicks in order for it to be considered a "double click".

Why hasn't anyone come out with a mouse that has a built in double-click button? It shouldn't even be called "double click" . it should be callse the "Activate" button" or something. You won't need any software to configure the damn thing. Want to run a file? simply "activate" it with your thumb(or whatever the design). No settings, no nothing. Do you need special settings in order to work with the "click" or "right click" button on the mouse? no. Its obvious and so should "Activate" be.

 

Get the hint, MSFT/Logitech?