Matt describes how he turns off an annoying feature of IE. I certainly understand where he’s coming from (I hate the image toolbar and turn it off in IE’s options on every PC I use), but breaking standard browser behavior is a mistake.
When people come to your site, they are still using their browser and are comfortable with their browsing environment. Power users know that they can usually accomplish the same thing 3 or 4 different ways in their browser; casual users do not. Casual users know one way to do something and rely on that one way working for them.
Casual users react to broken or missing expected functionality with concern and trepidation. If users aren’t comfortable being at your site, they aren’t going to stay for long. Whether you’re building a web site or a web application, it is very important to make sure common functionality still works.
One of the things I like doing in my web software is using a lot of DHTML to create a rich user experience. Often when this is done, common functionality gets broken because things are not done in common ways. If you are a developer and you find yourself saying ‘they can just do it this way instead’, you’re in trouble. I don’t have a perfect track record, but I try very hard not to break things if I can avoid it.
This not only goes for the browser features themselves, but rather the experience someone might have on a site. When adding new features, it’s extremely difficult not to make too many adjustments to the normal every-day usage features of the site. Power-users of the site can get pretty steamed if you change a website, even if you think it’s better.
It’s not a feature, it’s a mistake. It’s like turning off smarttags for the brief period they were active in IE — they are confusing and do more harm than good. However I am a believer is standard browser widgets where possible, which is why I would rather have a real submit button in Tasks instead of:
[code removed, ak]I will give it some more thought though. On some levels it is presumptious of me, as you said, to assume people shouldn’t see the IE image toolbar. I agree completely with your third paragraph. I guess the question comes to how much of an standard browser (expected) feature the image toolbar is to people in general, and to the people who visit my site in particular.
I’m with you on this one, Alex. Turning off features in some else’s browser just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
If they don’t want to use the image toolbar they can turn it off, if they do then so be it – but making the decision for them because you don’t like it just strikes me as a little childish.
I can see where you are coming from, Alex, but couldn’t one also use the same argument about the default presentation of links, and that changing that presentation via CSS is changing standard browser behavior?
In the end I guess it’s all a matter of personal choice. Personally, back when I used IE more often (for work) it bothered me that Microsoft had decided to pop that toolbar up over images, but I was too lazy to change the settings since I was in and out quickly.
The normal toolbars aren’t harmful; the image toolbar may be. If I send somebody a screenshot and they open it in Internet Explorer, virtually everyone will come straight back to me telling me it looks like sh*t. The reason? Internet Explorer automatically scales the image – badly.
The only way I know of to ensure the user sees the actual image and not a badly-scaled version of it by default is to disable the toolbar.
I am normal dead against disabling browser features. But this particular misfeature has a stupid default that users are mostly unaware of. This causes more problems for my visitors and clients than not having the toolbar.
Jason: yes, removing underlines from links is a huge usability problem.
Jim: that only happens when the image is displayed alone in the browser window. This would never be the case with Matt’s changes since his code is in the HTML (which wouldn’t be present if they were only looking at the image).
I disagree for a number of reasons.
First, if it’s considered a poor/bad feature (understandably debatable), then disabling it sends a message to the browser maker that it should be removed (especially if enough people do it). Features get deprecated all the time, no matter how many people get used to it. Ways of doing things change. People adapt. Windows XP is nothing like Windows 3.11.
I would also say that in this case, having the toolbar on by default may create an expected behavior in the user (of IE), but it is another instance where MS developers decided what was good for users, and considering most users don’t know how to alter default behaviors, I am more than happy to give them an instance to think.
Following this thought, you can take the view of turning off default browser behavior to the nth degree. Every choice YOU make as a designer/developer (web or otherwise) removes a choice from the user. It’s up to the designer/developer to be the guide. You can choose to try and please everyone (an impossible task) and leave every possible option open to the user, or you can guide the user through your site/application in a hopefully intuitive manner making the experience of using your site/app as pleasant as possible.
As much as I like them, I am not interested in creating a society of monkeys pushing buttons. I do believe in stimulating the little grey cells every now and then. If enough people do it, eventually users will come to expect that there is no toolbar.
In fact I like that as a tagline:
“There is no toolbar.”
I think you’re missing my point. Users are using a browser, not a web site. It is not the designer/developer’s job to cripple their software.
I’m going to quibble with the term “standard browser behavior.” I think Matt was more accurate to describe it as “an annoying feature of IE.” But perhaps just that’s a Photo* point of view.
However, when does one feature of a particular version of one browser become “standard browser behavior”? If Mozilla, Opera, and even previous versions of IE offered this “feature,” then you could argue it had become standard. But I see it as just another proprietary add-on. It reminds me of blink and marquee tags.
In addition, the functions offered by the Photo Bar are duplications of the menu found when you right click on an image. There’s no doubt the right click menu is standard browser behavior, and should not be blocked. But the Photo Bar adds no functional benefit not found on that menu, it just adds something unnecessary and distracting on top of the image.
Each browser has its own standard behavior. The point is not to disable features a user depends on.
However, to utilize the “feature” they must first visit a website. We’re speaking of a browser in context, not a browser in a vacuum. And in the context of visiting a website, this would be temporarily disabling a somewhat arbitrary “feature”, not crippling a web browser. No one is changing registry settings here.
This is a “feature” only recently introduced in IE6. If it disappeared tomorrow users would find other ways of doing the same tasks.
My point is sometimes you DO want to break things. Sometimes you don’t want users to get used to some silly little default “feature” that someone else decided was a good idea. Sometimes you DO know better. If all you do is follow what someone else decided should be the chosen path then you are doing a disservice to users because it means YOU are not thinking, and if you are not thinking then YOU are not doing your job.
The ability to disable this “feature” was put in the hands of designers/devlopers by MS. If this is browser functionality that MS feels users truly need, then they should remove the ability for designers/developers to disable it with a META tag.
However MS also seems to believe that there are reasons to script and affect the UA environment since we have a host of options that do just that.
I believe in a certain level of commonality so that tasks are not difficult (whether it be website/app/UA). I also believe in a user’s ability to adapt to the slight alterations that present themselves as they move from site to site. I believe in a users ability to learn, and it is a designers/devlopers job to teach the users how to (quickly) use their site/app/UA.
The previous default behavior for IE was no image toolbar. Think of disabling it as going retro.
Ummm…everyone claiming that this is a misfeature and should be removed from Internet Explorer do realize that someone has written an identical extension for Mozilla Firefox, right?
http://forums.mozill[...].php?t=73324
And just to be clear I also think it’s an annoying feature, but I do not think that just because I find it annoying nobody else should be allowed to use it.
Annoying or not is completely irrelevant.
“yes, removing underlines from links is a huge usability problem.”
It goes beyond that. For example, here on your site you’ve changed default behavior in such a way that there is no indication what links have already been followed. Not necessarily a bad choice, just a choice. I would say the same thing about disabling the image toolbar.
Just because it’s been copied doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. See: million office-clone interfaces with bad usability.
My respect for “standard browser behavior” ends when “features” change or obscure parts of my design. Do whatever you want in the toolbars or elsewhere in the periphery, but as far as I’m concerned, I (the designer) get to be in control of what happens within the browser window. If users choose to specify their own style sheets manually then more power to them. But the default behavior should be exactly what I’ve specified, not useless Microsoft-designed icons popping over my work.
I disagree Matt T. You don’t own your visitor’s browsing experience, they do. Don’t be confined by this one example, this is a symptom of a much larger issue.
“Just because it’s been copied doesn’t mean it’s a good idea”
Absolutely, but it obviously means someone somwhere (who are you?!) thinks it’s useful even if you and I don’t.
I was also addressing this comment:
“If Mozilla, Opera, and even previous versions of IE offered this “feature,” then you could argue it had become standard”
And, poor Alex getting negative comments about his site design and Tasks interface. Don’t take it personally – I like both!
The Browsing Experience
A discussion about interfering with standard browser behavior over at alexking.org led to the following statement: “You don’t own your visitor’s browsing experience, they do.”
But do they? At least, do they completely? After all, when a user d…
“And, poor Alex getting negative comments about his site design…”
I didn’t mean my comments to be taken negatively. I personally don’t feel any need to see which links I’ve already visited, and I too like Alex’s design. 🙂
“I (the designer) get to be in control of what happens within the browser window”
[troll] Yeah! And those horrible right-click menus should be disabled too! They cover up vital eye-candy and the user doesn’t really need such an annoying feature. [/troll]
Just like shrinking text from the users default, or even specifying your own size regardless of the users settings, removing low-level control away from the user is not a good thing. I don’t care how sexy you think your website is, if I have to increase the font-size everytime I visit, I will stop visiting.
hemebond: “…if I have to increase the font-size everytime I visit, I will stop visiting.”
Exactly. Designers can and should make choices, but they should realize those choices may have repercussions. That’s why I think designers should also be open to feedback… if their audience has a problem with the choices they’ve made, maybe they need to think twice about those choices. For instance, you’ve made it clear (at my site) that at least one person is having problems with my font size, so I’m going to work on that.
For any photo or image embedded in html, to be presented as an image to a user, the image toolbar should be left as is. I had to create a site where I needed to use an iframe, and as such, had to use both an![]()
tag and a bg image in a cell to accomplish what I needed. When the toolbar was enabled, it would popup and get in the way, and was just a pain. So there are defintly times when it should be disabled, but otherwise, it should be left alone.
Follow this through to its logical conclusion. You are saying that it is up to the designer to choose to cripple functionality in their visitor’s browser. There is no reason to do this.
How would you feel if someone’s site found a way to circumvent your pop-up blocking? You’d be upset, and rightfully so. You made the decision to block pop-ups and now a site is ignoring that decision.
It is the same thing with the image toolbar and any other feature you find annoying. Just because you find it annoying doesn’t make it right for you to turn it off for others.
But isn’t the fact that there IS a header you can send to disable the image toolbar also a feature itself?
I do see and agree with your point, though. It just seems to me the image toolbar is more of a gray area.
Holy cow, I never knew this was such a heated issue! 😉
I usually disable when using a larger image in a layout.
Never thought about it from your perspective though… hmmmm…
“But isn’t the fact that there IS a header you can send to disable the image toolbar also a feature itself?”
There are also IE-only CSS commands that can change the colour and visibility of the browsers scrollbars. And ActiveX commands that allow you to install software on a users computer without them even knowing.
“There are also IE-only CSS commands that can change the colour and visibility of the browsers scrollbars. And ActiveX commands that allow you to install software on a users computer without them even knowing.”
Yes, yes, I realize that, and these are of course bad things. Is disabling the image toolbar just as bad? Is it never ok?
Maybe it is just as bad, and maybe it is never ok. I need to think about it some more.
“Is it just as bad?” is the real crux of the issue. You really don’t know what might be a big problem for someone.
What if I just really dislike IE users? 😉
MSIE Image Toolbar
Via Tony: Matt has found out about removing the Internet Explorer Image Toolbar. It isn’t news to me, and it is well documented by Microsoft. This is a piece of code that I used to make a point of having…
“What if I just really dislike IE users?”
Design your web-pages to be XHTML+CSS2 compliant, using any features you want. That’s the only way IE users will learn.
This is no troll, I really hate it when people accomodate IE at their websites expence.
And use MOSe.
I don’t care how sexy you think your website is, if I have to increase the font-size everytime I visit, I will stop visiting. It’s funny!