On Tuesday, November 24, 1998 10:43 PM, Gill, Kathy
[SMTP:[log in to unmask]] wrote:
> > From: coneti girimohan[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 1998 1:33 PM
> >
> >
> > Gill, Kathy wrote:
> >
> > > > From: coneti girimohan[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> > > > Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 1998 12:32 PM
> > > >
> > > > Making the logo hot and directing it towards Home is a good idea
only
> > if u
> > > > have a animated logo.
> > > >
> > > Disagree with the assertion that the logo has to be animated before
> > turning
> > > it into a hot link. IMO, your logo should ALWAYS be hotlinked to your
> > home
> > > page -- even if there is another button/link with the word "home."
Tests
> > on
> > > the internal web have validated this opinion.
> >
> > I definitely agree abt ur views of providing multiple entry points but
> > Louise
> > was refering to a scenario where she had to choose between a labeled
> > button and
> > the logo. Besides, making the logo animated subscribes to the so called
> > web
> > browser guidelines which was also validated by tests...thats one reason
> > why we
> > have the Netscape and IE logos being animated.
> >
> all the research that i've seen shows that most users don't like
senseless
> animations - they force the user to concentrate to keep the eye from
moving
> from content to the spinning whatever. yes, animations are supposed to
make
> banner ads more "click-through-able" than those that are "plain" -- but
i've
> not seen research that suggests that **infrastructure navigation** be
> animated.
>
> be curious to see your research.
>
>
> kathy
I concur with this one. Needless animation moves the screen into an
'interruptive' medium, rather than an interactive medium - screen-based
artifacts all screaming 'click me!' merely because they are there, and
moving. Essentially, this tends to draw the user away from their task at
hand.
I'm not sure that I agree with Coneti in that an animated logo represents
"affordance that u could reach home from here" - the affordance is
contrived; without the learned behavior of the artifact, at best it only
affords the click - animation for it's own goal reveals nothing about the
function of that artifact.
The example of web browser animation itself does not afford 'take me to the
home page' - a great proportion of users we have studied use this _only_ as
an indicator that some transfer (or browser-centric) action is taking
place.
Bear in mind that a logo is merely a statement of identity - the behavior
of clicking on it to go 'home' is essentially a learned one - like knowing
to click on a blue, underlined item of text - rather than a real
affordance. The essential concept of encoding affordant artifacts in an
interface is to reduce the gulfs of execution and evaluation - having to
learn a mapping between something that reveals identity and a distinct
function does not achieve that, unless the learned behavior is _truely_
consistent accross all interfaces (i.e. all web pages).
cheers, and best regards,
==
Matt Pearcey
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