The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #141080   Message #3245209
Posted By: Jim Dixon
26-Oct-11 - 03:43 PM
Thread Name: Tech: HTML mouseover
Subject: RE: Tech: HTML mouseover
I hate it when people tell me click here without telling me what will happen if I click it. Maybe I don't want to click it—for instance, I don't want to wait to download a 50-page PDF or a 10-minute video if I happen to be on a slow internet connection. Or maybe I don't want to click something that will start playing music, because I'm using my laptop in a public library and I don't have my earphones plugged in. Most often, I just don't want to waste my time clicking links if the information given there simply isn't useful to me.

If titles can be used intelligently to tell me what a link is for before I click it, I'm all for it.

Of course, the same information can be given in the text, but that might just clutter up the page with information that is useless to most users.

Titles might be useful if you want to fit lots of links very compactly into a small space, like, for example, at refdesk.com.

Like this:

Music news: MinneapolisSt. Paul – Duluth – Rochester – [etc.]

(Hey, I'm not sure these links will work. If not, I'll fix them later.)