Just to make sure the rest of the group got to see Mark's reply (see below).
To add my own comment to Mark's reply:
While I am by no means a javascript guru, I don't believe it is possible for javascript to affect the local PC. The cursor icon, is controlled by the core API of whatever OS you happen to be running (OSX, Windows Shell, KDE, etc). Web scripting, generally doesn't have access to that API (with the exception of ActiveX).
I wonder if instead of changing the cursor, you could certainly have some help text appear to help guide the user to the correct action.
Though, from a usability perspective, you are correct web users expect to single click to open mail or any other link. Requiring 3 clicks, without any noticable gain, seems confusing.
My 2 cents.
Geoffrey
On 10/8/2005, "Mark Mackay - Orcon" mark@orcon.net.nz wrote:
I just wanted to clarify my comments about the message double-click:
I like the double-click, it's just that I found that with IE6/Win when I double-clicked on a subject, the line would highlight, then the word I double-clicked on -- then wait 1-5 secs then the message would load (meaning I often double-double-clicked, triple clicked, etc).
Changing the cursor to an hourglass/watch would give the visual feedback needed to let me stop clicking, however the highlighting of the word I clicked over (rather than just the selected line) is a bit unexpected, compared with a desktop app. Not sure if this is resolvable.
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OTH users of the web are used to single-clicking (although there are those pesky double-clickers), so it's something to guide people into. By watching our first test users I found most people expected to single-click and get a preview pane. If this is in the pipeline as an optional UI element, then the double-click to view the message on its own will make more sense.
If not, or in any case, we're better to guide the users as to how to use it: maybe just some help text is needed "double click a message to open it". This could appear after a delay if someone just selected a message and did nothing else maybe.
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I could be being a bit overzealous here. Most people figured it out quickly enough, and I think the hourglass if that's easily doable will probably solve it.
Regards, Mark Mackay.