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ChromeClick here ONCE

Google's one-click OS

Michael Arrington says the Chrome web browser is Google’s latest addition to a system that could replace the Windows operating system. If that happens, I think it could also eliminate a basic element of modern user interface: the double-click.

Google knows that the we navigate the web by “single-clicking” on links. They’ve incorporated that into their calendar and email web applications.

If Chrome succeessfully replaces Windows, why would Google stray from its single-click approach? Especially after another game-changing technology shook the double-click just last year …

@sonyanews tells me that her iPhone only uses single clicks. Remember that its operating system is based on elements from OS X, the same system that powers Macs. What’s to stop Apple from bringing that concept to its desktop and laptop computers?

But “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” right?

Maybe it’s broke

It almost looks like usability guru Jakob Nielsen used a magic time machine (with a purely textual interface, of course) to travel into the Googly future when he wrote “When to Open Web-Based Applications in a New Window“ eleven years ago. In it, he proposed the radical idea that “double-click must die since it causes novice users great difficulties and since it conflicts with the single-click interaction style of the Web.”

Not even two decades after Apple introduced double-clicking in its Lisa computer, Nielsen wanted to put it down. Suprisingly, the interface designer who started Apple’s Macintosh project seemed to echo that sentiment. In Jeff Raskin’s book The humane interface (2000), he wrote that double-clicking “as an interface technique suffers from problems.”

Instead of going away, the “problem” crept into other systems. In 2002, Sébastien Biot conducted a usability test for the KDE desktop environment. Its interface used a single-click approach by default. Biot observed that all test participants “made the same mistake of double-clicking when a single-click would have been sufficient.” The behavior had become engrained into our culture.

The call to get rid of the double-click has resurfaced from time to time in unrelated forums. Three years ago, commenters rallied around “double click hell,” in a Creative Bits blog post inspired by Apple’s Mighty Mouse. In 2004, developer Jeff Atwood quoted Nielsen’s 1997 article in a  blog post that played host to a lengthy debate in its comments. When the idea surfaced to “eliminate double-click; replace with something better” from the Ubuntu operating system, it met resistance from some members of the development community. The thread of commets ended with one user simply stating “I like my 2 clicks.”

Can it happen?

We use the system we have to use. It doesn’t matter how much you like your MacHome. When you enter your MS Workplace, you have to use Windows.

If Arrington is right, Windows will be ditched  we will all have to use Chrome OS. If that happens, I suspect we will easily adjust to its single-click interface.

But lets assume Arrington’s prophecy doesn’t come true anytime soon — or ever. There is still hope for my one-clickian friends. Microsoft was probably the first big company to tepidly entertain Nielsen’s idea, just one year after he introduced it.

Wikipedia points to “single-click activation of icons in Windows Explorer” as one of Windows 98′s new features, “adhering to a web page paradigm.” All Microsoft has to do is make this the default behavior — or get rid of the double-click option altogether — and we’ll be living in a monoclick world.

What can a one-click fanboy do?

Of course true fans of the single click probably can’t wait for Google to kill Windows, or for Microsoft to make changes to Windows default settings. No worries. Just tell Windows XP to act more like a web browser. For the technically-challenged monoclickers, here is what you have to do:

  1. Click on the “Start” menu
  2. Click on “Control Panel”
  3. If you are prompted to pick a category, click on “Appearance and Themes,” then “Folder Options” and skip the next step
  4. For the last time, double-click “Folder Options”
  5. Make sure your settings look like the image below.
Windows XP defaults to double-click behavior

Windows, able to open items with a single click!

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