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Answers.com and why you should not play with menu item placements

Recently, Google is linking to Answers.com for exploring meaning of search terms.

I kind of like the service, it’s neat; it’s fast and gets the job done.

Yesterday, I took a step ahead and installed their desktop application which allows one to click on any word anywhere on your desktop and get its meaning. They even offer integration with Internet Explorer through right click menu.

Today, I was browsing using Internet Explorer[1] and I kept going to Answers.com for no apparent reason. That’s when I realized that they have installed ‘Answers’ menu item as the first menu item replacing the default ‘Back’.

Answers.COM Integration with Internet Explorer

So whenever I tried to use ‘Back’ menu item using right click, I went to Answers.com! This shows how important consistency is in User Interface Design. I am so used to right clicking and selecting first item as ‘Back’ that if you replace it with something else, I will be toast! It’s a bad design decision by Answers to replace the de-facto place of ‘Back’ menu item. They should install menu item ‘Answers’ above ‘Properties’ just like everyone else. I hope somebody from Answers.com reads this and corrects it.

[1] - Yes, I am no Firefox fanatic, I use IE depending on how I am feeling at given moment.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 23rd, 2005 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Rants, Windows Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

3 Responses to “Answers.com and why you should not play with menu item placements”

  1. Anil Says:
    May 23rd, 2005 at 5:08 pm

    Good point. About the firefox fanaticism, my solution is to browse with FF and use the ieview extention to ‘View this page in IE’ if it doesn’t work on FF.

    The main reason why I always browse with FF is that having used tabbed browsing, I cannot do without it. The next major reason is the lack of support for ActiveX which works great for me! (Almost every day I encounter at least one website where someone has put up a fake windows dialog box that wants to install some software on my box. It’s too easy to click on them). The third major reason is the plethora of extensions that make browsing so much better.

    The reason why I still end up using IE on certain sites is that many sites that use windows media don’t work well with FF.

  2. Arjun Prabhu Says:
    May 24th, 2005 at 12:52 am

    I have seen that menu somewhere!… oh!. yes. IE! :) thanks for begining back old memories :D

  3. Arjun Prabhu Says:
    May 24th, 2005 at 12:53 am

    I have seen that menu somewhere!… oh!. yes. IE! :) thanks for bringing back old memories :D

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