Search forms that do not focus
I just cannot get it, and it’s chasing me already for long. Why, on earth, some damn web-designers cannot make the first input bar on their web page to automatically focus when you enter the web page?!!!! Especially if the page in question is indeed a search interface!?? Why to force the users to click or tab to the input once they already decided that they want to search?
Some ‘great’ examples:
http://www.hs.fi/haku/,
http://www.joensuu.fi/tkt/haku.html,
http://www.joensuu.fi/haku.html, ..and many others.
Some examples that pass the test:
http://www.jns.fi/search/Search.phx, http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en, http://joel.amkit.fi/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi
How easy it would be for a user to just start typing the query and hit enter! Google can make it! Why then not the others? The problem here is that even with usability testing such a problem is hard to discover. Users often do not mind anyway to first navigate to the input bar. However, once you read this post, you will become aware :)
A solution general enough, just copy and paste, thanks!!!