- From: Florian Rivoal via GitHub <sysbot+gh@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 13:57:48 +0000
- To: public-css-archive@w3.org
One thing that makes this issue tricky is that since we let UAs pick their own design for the different types of cursors (which is totally the right thing to do), we cannot prescribe what the cursors should look like (although we can give suggestions), but instead we describe them by what they should evoke to the user. The pointer cursor has been described as evoking "this is a link", as it is what it was initially displayed for, so there was that mental association. This is not exactly the same as saying "use this for links and for links only". Authors may do whatever they want with it. At the same time, good UX usually relies on familiarity, so using the cursor that makes people think "this is a link" on non links is somewhat questionable. Now, what happens is that many (but not all) people have been routinely using it to indicate "this is clickable". So a good way to describe which cursor we want the UA to show can now be "the one that often gets shown to indicate things are clickable". But because of the same UX principles, that also comes out as an endorsement for using it for more than links, which may or may not be intended. I am not sure whether we should prioritize being descriptive of what it is often used for, or being prescriptive of what it should be used for. If the former, [amelia's suggestion](https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/1936#issuecomment-341987070) is pretty good. If the later, it may still be good if we agree that using it on all clickable things is good, or not if we think that it really ought to be used just on links. Adding "Often rendered as the backside of a hand with the index finger extended." should be non controversial (and purely editorial), so I'll do that part. For the rest, I don't have a strong opinion, so I'll go with the group's preference. -- GitHub Notification of comment by frivoal Please view or discuss this issue at https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/1936#issuecomment-384296388 using your GitHub account
Received on Wednesday, 25 April 2018 13:57:54 UTC