Design Sojourn

Ever wondered what if a computer was designed with an interface that never required using a button for clicking? Is it more intuitive or has clicking been ingrained in our psyche?

Dont Click It is a very cool and interesting experimental site by the Institute of Interactive Research that focuses on this hypothetical situation. You can navigate the entire site without any mouse clicks!

There are many cool features that they amazingly stuff into 220K of fast loading flash data. I liked the 3 explorations of activating the button clicklessly (is that even a word?) and the mouse cover product with spikes.

Also interestingly, statistics wise, they run a continuous poll where the number of people that could operate without a button to those that could not are almost double! Personally I had no problems operating without a button, but I must admit I did get some accidental clicks in there.

However I do wonder about wider applications other than the internet. For one it seems the site or interface needs to be designed to take advantage of it and specifically for the mouse-over to do the work. I’m not a computer engineer, but it seems such applications could get graphic intensive and may result in a whole lot of interface re-designs.

Potential wise it seems to me it’s got some application in for stylus based interfaces or very focused products where there is no need for installation of additional applications. At the end of the day do play around with the site and explore what could have been. I think its opens great possibilities in interface design especially for people with disabilities, elderly with arthritis or lowered hand eye coordination or simply while eating French Fries with your dominant hand!

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