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CSS legend

It's nice but how about some clues?
 
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That's a nice design, but I have no idea which one of those is a button, a menu or link? What's draggable and droppable? How can I tell mouseover is an important part of the functionality?

A simple CSS legend for the user to know how to use your site before even touching the mouse.

leinypoo13, Sep 16 2012

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       Not tooltips. ( I edited this by mistake and lost the text)
leinypoo13, Sep 16 2012
  

       I half-decent site should be intuitive to use, and people who design bad sites are unlikely to produce a "key" well.   

       Also, is the key a graphical overlay on top of the site? If so, it will look horrid. If it's in a separate window, or in a corner of the page, it'll still be horrid but now also too small to view.   

       Cars don't generally have labels saying "gearshift - move to change", "windscreen - look through here", "seat - arse goes here" etc - websites shouldn't need such labels either.   

       Just no.
MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 16 2012
  

       Yes but they are not cars, there are numerous more designers and possibilities of design than there are for cars. Ok pop up legend on link that says legend. Why even make exploring or intuition a necessity? There are so many features on sites that people just don't know about because they have to click around to find them. Oh, when i click rhe red it does this? Oh the drop shadow items are draggable. Oh so this is a link? Way too many sites rely on intuition and way too many features that could lure in a user remain undiscovered. This may be faster and easier than an FAQ, intuition or video IMO.
leinypoo13, Sep 16 2012
  

       Well designed sites should be intuitive. Poorly designed sites solve the problem by slapping "click here" everywhere, etc.   

       You could feasibly have a browser extension which shows a test page with all the standard interactive elements, using the css of the page you're currently viewing. I'm not sure it would be all that useful.
mitxela, Sep 16 2012
  

       I'd say yes for massive sites where visitors would be more than simply browsing (library catalogue, government, universities, etc), for long periods of time andor multiple visits, otherwise what [MB] said.
FlyingToaster, Sep 16 2012
  

       Nearly all websites with healthy web traffic are web apps, where you have to create a profile etc. sometimes they have the exact same functionalities, but completely different designs, and sometimes they have unique JavaScript based functionalities. But it is very difficult to tell by the design at a glance a) whether events are tied to the element b) what these events might do. I say a legend helps and would perhaps retian users who visit when they try figure out what to do when they visit he latest web app craze Plooooft.com etc. Easy enough to do.
leinypoo13, Sep 16 2012
  

       // labels saying"gearshift - move to change", "windscreen look through here", "seat - arse goes here" etc. //   

       You've never rented a vehicle out of Dow Field, have you ? And we don't mean a one- horse buggy, either (although they are the bulk of the rental business from locals).
8th of 7, Sep 16 2012
  

       //cars don't have   

       Tanks do. There are some funny stories about those labels.
pashute, Feb 02 2014
  
      
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