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Hover Effects

I am not a fan of websites that require you to hover over the top of some area to get to content. The sole exception to this is some sort of expanding menu. I understand some reasons for it; it gets your audience more engaged in “discovering” areas, but it flies in the face of keeping the web simple and easy to read. I am sure there are some accessibility arguments against hovering to uncover site content as well. I’m usually not one to get all hung up on web standards and the semantic web.

Not to pick on these guys; they do some super nice work, (see their fish packaging) but here is an illustration of what I mean: FSDesign.

Strangely enough, there has been no massive blogger backlash regarding this issue. Allow me to be the first.

So what’s the point, you say. How does this rant help me? Well, hovering disease afflicts designers primarily. I own a book named Don’t Make me Think! Honestly, I can’t remember a single thing from it, so this is not a ringing endorsement. I was looking through my bookshelf for items to eBay, when I ran across this book again. I considered tossing it but the title alone says it all; Don’t make me think. I kept the book for the reminder. Websites should be as obvious and simple to navigate as possible 99% of the time. Just something to consider next time you are tempted to do some sort of hover effect.

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