Comment by viraptor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by viraptor | Hacker News Reader

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> to pander to users who are apparently too stupid to notice that the focus is somewhere other than the text field they're entering into

I think you've just insulted a lot of people. I've run into the backspace behaviour multiple times and never on purpose. Here's a few reasons why it can happen, apart from stupidly mashing my keyboard, which I assure you, doesn't happen very often:

- touchpad not registering a click on the text field

- element reloading due to weird js and losing focus

- tab switching properly between the first 4 fields, but then focusing some random button instead of the 5th input

- broken custom JS elements which don't quite understand focus and editing

- general keypress hijacking which doesn't do what you want

I don't look at the keyboard as I type and I don't always look at the screen either. I expect the text actions (input and editing) to work on text. If I have to think about which possible, implicit mode I'm operating in, it's a bad design. Or are you saying that before every keypress you visually verify where your cursor is, is it blinking, is the right window focused, are there multiple cursors with fake focus, etc?

touchpad not registering a click on the text field

It's not hard to notice whether an element has focused, and especially if you know you have flaky hardware, be aware of that.

All your other reasons are the fault of the website, not the browser.

I expect the text actions (input and editing) to work on text. If I have to think about which possible, implicit mode I'm operating in, it's a bad design.

You're implying that the computer somehow magically (telepathically?) determines exactly where your input is to go. That's not possible.

Or are you saying that before every keypress you visually verify where your cursor is, is it blinking, is the right window focused, are there multiple cursors with fake focus, etc?

In a word, yes. It's seriously not hard to see where the focus is. I usually have multiple windows open but there is only one cursor and it's the only thing that's blinking. Many others I've seen maximise their browser window, so there shouldn't be other cursors much less blinking ones visible (unless there is some strange bug which does cause this --- in which case that is definitely a bug to be fixed). If I'm at all unsure, I make sure.

Besides, if I'm going to submit some very long text, I'll write it all in a real text editor first and then copy-paste.

I don't always look at the screen either.

That's like saying "I don't always look at where I'm going when I drive. Why do I keep crashing into things?"

> All your other reasons are the fault of the website, not the browser.

It would be a beautifully principled stand for a browser to take to refuse to fix the problems of a web site, but the result would be a browser that couldn't navigate the web. After all, the first problem it would refuse to fix would be invalid HTML.

You're extremely self-centered and dismissive of other people's experience, I have to say.

I'm sorry, but maintaining your little piece of convenience isn't worth denying other users a more forgiving user experience.

You're probably a twenty-something with sharp reflexes. What's "not that hard" to you on whatever websites you happen to use may be a significant challenge for older people who are forced to use terribly designed websites/webapps for work or other services.

You're extremely self-centered and dismissive of other people's experience, I have to say.

The same could be said of the developers who think they're always right.

I'm sorry, but maintaining your little piece of convenience isn't worth denying other users a more forgiving user experience.

Judging by the other comments here, I'm not the only one who uses this shortcut.

You're probably a twenty-something with sharp reflexes.

I'm much older than that. If anything it's the younger generation who are driving most of these unpleasant UI changes and dumbing things down. Reflexes have nothing to do with it. Read carefully, slow down, and pay attention to what you're doing.

What's "not that hard" to you on whatever websites you happen to use may be a significant challenge for older people who are forced to use terribly designed websites/webapps for work or other services.

That goes back to my original suggestion of having a prompt dialog, and making it configurable for those who don't want the "permanent training wheels".

> The same could be said of the developers who think they're always right.

Browsers often include telemetry which can answer questions like "how many of backspace presses to go to the previous page were accidents" which may prove them right. While I don't know if that or a similar method was used or not, why do you think they just "think they're always right"? What if they did a proper research on the usability of this change and found you're in extreme minority?

There was a G+ discussion where Chrome devs discussed this. The suggestion of rigging up monitoring to look for this was considered, but the case was seen as so obvious (user-state loss vs. a week or two to adapt to a changed shortcut) that it wasn't considered worth the effort.

See Ojan Vafai's comment(s) here:

https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/F1dio2L9XtS

IMO the data above is enough when coupled with anecdotal data. Given that it didn't seem worth investing the considerable engineering effort we would need to gather more data. Although there was disagreement on that point. As Peter said, this decision was only loosely based on metrics. Ultimately it was intuition based on a combination of the data mentioned above and anecdote.

https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/Z2Fbr67q...

"Judging by the other comments here, I'm not the only one who uses this shortcut."

So what? There's a lot of people who actually lose data due to this "feature". Even if there was more of "your kind" (which I doubt), preventing data loss is more important than slight convenience. You can easily change a setting or a commandline option or install an extension. A lot of other people would need to call tech support for that, because they're afraid they'll break their computer...

"Read carefully, slow down, and pay attention to what you're doing."

For someone beyond their twenties, you're certainly a wise-ass, I have to say.

"That goes back to my original suggestion of having a prompt dialog, and making it configurable for those who don't want the "permanent training wheels"

Your suggestion doesn't work. It would literally break some applications and make others so annoying to use that the prompt would be the first thing users disable, bringing us back to square one.

The underlying problem is unsolvable for a browser vendor. All that can be done is to mitigate it by reducing accidental back-navigation. If that means people like you are inconvenienced, so be it.

I commented on the different points of view of the younger and the older at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729287#11739659 .

> It's not hard to notice whether an element has focused

That's not true for many websites. Maybe you're not using them, but in that case accept that others do.

> and especially if you know you have flaky hardware

We all have flaky hardware. It's called human body :) Sometimes your touchpad press will not register, whatever the computer hardware.

> It's seriously not hard to see where the focus is.

If you're using only websites where it's true, great. First example off the top of my head where it's not true: https://www.anz.com/INETBANK/bankmain.asp - start typing anything in the login box - you'll lose the focus or the page will reload after ~10 seconds. It's one example, but there's lots of similar ones. Another fun one is on a page (not linking, because account is required) where the text boxes for credit card will automatically skip forward every 4 digits, but when you backspace they'll just lose focus instead of skipping back.

> You're implying that the computer somehow magically (telepathically?) determines exactly where your input is to go.

No, that's not it. I'm saying that if I do actions that should put me in a specific mode, a good design does two things: 1) makes it trivial to notice that it happened and 2) minimises the errors if it didn't. Since point 1 is up to the website (and often the mode is not explicit at all), the browser can only handle point 2.

> That's like saying "I don't always look at where I'm going when I drive. Why do I keep crashing into things?"

Here's a large group of people you're missing: people working on a remote desktop with the server not in the same building. This for example includes a lot of government and healthcare offices. If they had to wait for local response for every single character they typed, rather than assume the input mode doesn't randomly change, they wouldn't be able to do their jobs. (on time)

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