24 April 2007

Click click click...

    Don't care how
    I want it now
      Veruca Salt
      Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

So, are you a multiple clicker? If you're on a web page, do you start clicking a link over and over if it doesn't come up immediately on the first click? Do you engage in the online equivalent of pressing the elevator call button over and over, even though it's already lit? Just curious....

I encounter users like this now and then, usually when there is a problem in a program I wrote. I'm with the user trying to figure it out, and they just start clicking over and over. It's surprisingly frustrating. Here's my poor little program, struggling to do what's asked of it. Each click just adds to the load. I'm watching what's going on, maybe starting to see clues, tracing the path of the bullet if you will. Then "click click click click click" comes the virtual shotgun blast. Everything collapses and all clues are long gone.

Of course, my program should be able to handle it, and I've certainly done something wrong that needs to be fixed. That's probably why all those clicks infuriate me. They serve to further highlight the inadequacies of my creation. It's not like I don't do it, either. I've clicked away in frustration, fully aware that it does no good.

Anyway, I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I was on a WebEx the other day, and the person driving the mouse kept doing it. I was reminded how much it bugs me, and figured it was something I could post. So there it is.

3 comments:

Rob S. said...

My extra clicking drives Kathy crazy. (One of many things, I guess.) It's generally on the internet, rather than a program I'm running -- and generally because I honestly don't know whether the first one "connected." I've done the opoosite -- sat and waited for a web page to load when my click never registered -- and the clicking is preferable to me. But if I can see it working, I'll leave it alone for the most part.

Andrew said...

The programs I'm testing are usually web applications, so from the user's persepective it's a web page. Part of the problem with web applications is that each click on a link sends an additional request for the same thing, all of which need to be processed.

Sharon GR said...

Am sorry, I'm often a multiclicker for the same reason Rob S. is. It happened to me just this morning- I was waiting and waiting but the click hadn't taken.