The title of this post comes from a staff member at a client of mine. We were discussing a possible project and the staffer was showing me how they did a particular task. They were using a web app that was going to a lot of trouble not to look like a web app: the users all had a shorctut on their desktop to launch a browser pointed at the site, most of IEs toolbars were suppressed so you didn't think you were even in a browser, and so on.

She performed a search, but before clicking the button she copied her search terms from the textbox, opened a blank Notepad, and pasted them in. "I'll explain that in a minute", she said. Then she clicked the button, and followed the link to the first search hit of twelve or so. On that page she made a small change, or noted down something she saw, something minor anyway. Then she said "Here's the frustrating part." There was no link back to the search results and the IE toolbars were all suppressed. So she used the nav bar links to go back to the home page, from there clicked a link to the search page, pasted in the search terms she had saved, did the search again, followed the second link this time (and the designer didn't like visited and non-visited links being different colours so she had to remember which one she was on) and round and round again.

So I asked "why don't you just use the Back key?" "What Back key?" She was on the second result, and I reached over and pressed Backspace to take her back to the search results. That's when she said "You just saved me an hour a day!" She didn't hug me, but she did something just as good -- ran around the office telling everyone else what she had learned. That particular project didn't fly, but I still do lots of work for that client. And those five people all have an extra hour a day for the rest of time.

What do you know that you're not telling users? Keyboard shortcuts, context menus, alternate ways to do simple tasks... share it!

Kate