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In the example provided the ad link has a decent amount of white space between it and the inbox link. There's even an intended barrier between the two in the form of a horizontal rule, granted one pixel. What more do you want?

Are we to ascertain the shakiness level of the user to determine the proper amount of white space? A CSS media query maybe?

@media min-shakiness: 0.5 and max-shakiness: 1

But then, I'm just being rude here, sorry.

The other case seemingly ignored here is that the clicked link in no way resembles the intended link. Assuming the user can read the link it seems he did not read what he's clicking on. Granted, life puts limitations on us as we get older but I don't understand how one can predict behaviors of people who do not fully read what they are clicking on.

There's a great deal to be said about examples of bad design causing people to do things they did not intend, I don't believe this is one of them.



In the example provided the ad link has a decent amount of white space between it and the inbox link

"Decent" for whom? For you, maybe, because your motor skills are sharp. For those whose aren't, maybe not so much.

Are we to ascertain the shakiness level of the user to determine the proper amount of white space? A CSS media query maybe? ...But then, I'm just being rude here, sorry.

Yes, you are. Degraded/impaired motor skills aren't just something older people deal with, they come with a range of illnesses and disabilities too. Snarking about a media query for "shakiness" is sort of like a retail store owner snarking about whether he needs to put a camera on his store door to check if people using the ramp are really in wheelchairs.

There's even an intended barrier between the two in the form of a horizontal rule.. I don't understand how one can predict behaviors of people who do not fully read what they are clicking on.

These comments indicate that you don't really understand the problem we're talking about here. It's not that the user doesn't know the ad link is a different link. It's that she tries to click the link she wants but ends up clicking the ad link accidentally because the close placement of the two links makes it easy for a bump on a trackpad to send a click intended for link A skidding over to link B instead.


Decent for whom is my point. How far down the path do we go before it's a losing proposition? You cannot possibly please everyone and yet people are advocating that we must or be labeled failures.

I admitted I was being rude. The point is that we cannot possibly account for every kind of limitation that people may have. We do the best that we can realizing that we cannot account for everything. The only answer to that question is to remove the ad altogether, which is not a solution.

Ok, good point, the problem being seeing one spot to click on but clicking on another by accident. Now explain to me exactly how one is supposed to predict that and account for it? Accidental bump on a trackpad is not a problem inherent with the design of the site, it's a problem of the hardware and its usage. It's the same problem with the vertical row of links that belong to the app in question, despite the ad placement. Are we suggesting that the menu links on the left should be separated by at least fifty vertical pixels?

So, my original point, what's the optimum distance between two links to avoid accidental clicking due to physical limitations and hardware problems? There is no way to determine that.

The example given of Google using low contrast colors to separate search results from ads is a good example of taking advantage. This Yahoo example is not because the two links in question do have a noticeable separation and do not bear any resemblance to each other. People clicking on spot fully expecting that they are clicking on another is a completely different topic and is not indicative that Yahoo is taking advantage of anyone. How can one claim that Yahoo is somehow taking advantage of people by tricking them into clicking on ads that are "close" to an intended link? What exactly do they benefit from this?


Granted, life puts limitations on us as we get older but I don't understand how one can predict behaviors of people who do not fully read what they are clicking on.

See, you've misunderstood the root of the problem. This person knew exactly where he wanted to click, he aimed for those targets, and his physical limitations caused him to miss those targets. User intent is not the problem.

The problem here is the penalty for missing: he gets shuttled to an off-site advertisement that doesn't have anything to do the task at hand. If he misses and just goes to Drafts instead of Inbox, that's a much easier mistake for the user to understand and correct; the intended target link is still prominent on the unintended page, it's easy to connect cause with effect ("Stupid shaky hand, oops!"), and it's easy to try again. Unfortunately, in this case, that advertisement's placement makes it a very expensive miss for the user. Before the user even knows what has happened, he's on another site entirely. And that ad is placed between what are arguably the two most important links in the interface: Inbox and Compose.

In the example provided the ad link has a decent amount of white space between it and the inbox link. There's even an intended barrier between the two in the form of a horizontal rule, granted one pixel. What more do you want?

He probably missed the targets because they're skinny and/or long and require a good deal of "vertical accuracy", which can easily devolve into "vertical inaccuracy". The targets should be given some additional vertical size. This is anecdotal based upon experiences with my own shaky hand, so YMMV.


As I posted in another comment, the problem you describe exists for this person regardless of whether it involves an ad or not. The entire UI for this app is a serious problem with a person of these limitations.

I fail to see how going to an ad page is a worse offense than going to Drafts as opposed to Inbox. Either way the person in question has to correct the mistake. Expensive in what way? Money, time, embarrassment? I don't see the difference.

The ad is between Compose and Inbox, so what? Are you suggesting that Yahoo somehow benefits from an accidental click on this ad? What's the purpose of them putting it there? Could it be possible they have it there because they consider that you are more likely to see it there and not that you'll accidentally click on it?

And again, what's the optimum distance that's acceptable? Fifty pixels? One hundred? I would have to assume that if this is the problem then it is a potential problem for nearly every website and application ever made. The reason this bothers me is because people are saying the burden is on Yahoo to fix this when the problem does not necessarily lay with them, but other factors are in play they have no control over. Some people are even suggesting nefarious reasons for this ad placement to "trick" people into clicking on it. For what benefit?

I too sometimes click on something other than what I intended. Most of the time I don't blame the app, I blame myself. There are times that people will employ tricks to get you to do what they want, that's when you complain; this is not a good example of this.


I fail to see how going to an ad page is a worse offense than going to Drafts as opposed to Inbox. Either way the person in question has to correct the mistake. Expensive in what way? Money, time, embarrassment? I don't see the difference.

At first it's going to be confusion. It's the difference between quickly being able to understand the mistake (because the whole interface is still on the screen, with the pointer maybe in the same position) vs. suddenly being on a completely different site. Keep in mind that this is a missed link, so the user may not immediately know what has been clicked.

After the guy has been using Yahoo Mail for a while and the peril of that ad is well understood, it's just going to become really really annoying, getting sent off-site, every time he hits it. And he will hit it.

Could it be possible they have it there because they consider that you are more likely to see it there and not that you'll accidentally click on it?

Sure. But is that the best choice? That's the question. Like you say, even fully able-bodied people sometimes click the wrong link. It seems like a good idea to take that into consideration when placing what may be the two most trafficked buttons within your interface. I'm not assuming nefarious purposes on Yahoo's part.

I can't say what the optimum vertical height of a button should be for a shaky person. Gmail serves my purposes fairly well without making many design compromises.


A shakiness adjustment is a great idea, like high-contrast mode in the OS UI. Adroid Chrome does this, it zooms in when you click on a link near another link, and makes you reclick on theink you want.


Please keep in mind, I was being sarcastic.




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