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Internet Explorer 8 Delete Option Is Frustrating

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IE8 Since I’ve begun using Windows 7 full-time over the past week, I’ve been forced to use Internet Explorer 8 (IE) rather than IE 7 that I used in Vista. There are some things I like about IE 8, like page loading speed and compatibility / standards mode, but there is one glaring user interface problem that has bugged me since the beta for IE 8 was released – the delete icon in the address drop down list.

The delete icon is supposed to be there to make it easy to remove previously visited web sites that you don’t want displaying in the drop down list. However, because it appears just to the left of the drop down arrow, I frequently inadvertently delete the web site that I actually intended to visit. The presence of the delete icon has really slowed down my browsing because I find myself having to think too much about where I’m clicking. I just want to click to visit the web site and not have to worry about accidentally deleting it and having to start over.

Microsoft could improve this user interface a great deal by 1) removing the delete icon from the frequently used interface, and 2) moving that functionality to the Tools / Internet Options / Browsing History interface.

Until this gets fixed, I’ll primarily be using Chrome and Firefox.

10 Comments

10 Comments

  1. David

    11/03/2008 at 11:47 am

    I’m not sure I follow your flow and reasoning.

    First, about accidentally deleting the site you’re trying to go to. How do you accidentally hit the delete button? Are you typing and then mousing to the “go arrow”? I’m not picking, but why not just hit enter after typing? Is it happening when using the drop down list with a mouse? On my setup (IE7), you don’t have to hit anything to go to the page – you just click anywhere on the site name and it goes – so how does the delete button get hit? Again, I’m truly trying to understand what is going on.

    Second, about moving the delete function to somewhere else, I would think it would be a LOT less convenient to go into menus for this. By the way, the way I see this function as being useful is removing addresses I typed incorrectly that keep cropping up. Being able to delete it from history with a convenient mouse click sounds great.

    D.

  2. Rob Bushway

    11/03/2008 at 11:54 am

    @david – I’m not typing at all – I’m just hitting the drop down arrow to select a previously visited site. Hit the drop down arrow with your pen or mouse to visit one of the sites listed. Pull down your pen or mouse – the delete icon appears directly underneath the natural positioning of the mouse / pen after you begin moving the pen or mouse. It doesn’t take much wiggle room with the pen to hit the delete button.

  3. SebaSOFT

    11/03/2008 at 1:07 pm

    Dude, what’s wrong with the X button for Stop, the classic red square is not quite stylish for Microsoft/Google?

  4. Jake

    11/03/2008 at 1:21 pm

    Perhaps they could move the delete icon to the left hand side of the drop down list.

  5. GoodThings2Life

    11/03/2008 at 3:50 pm

    I’m with you on this one Rob, they should get rid of the button completely and depend on the Delete key on the keyboard to manage that. When I tried the beta on my tablet, I would accidentally bump it all the time while hovering the pen over a link I planned to click.

  6. sipp11

    11/03/2008 at 7:50 pm

    In contrast, I found that’s helpful in tablet mode since I don’t have to click ‘del’ myself; just pen is enough and never have this problem ever.

    If keyboard is there, I never use mouse finding like you describe anyway.

  7. sipp11

    11/03/2008 at 7:57 pm

    I forget to ask you that how you use Chrome then? since Chrome doesn’t even have drop-down list like Firefox and ie.

    Quite odd, avoiding something you are familiar to face something you don’t do at all.

  8. Rob

    11/03/2008 at 8:06 pm

    I miss the drop down list in Chrome a lot, and am quite disappoint that it wasn’t integrated – not surprised, though, since it is based on WebKit. I’ve found myself going back and forth among the three browsers quite a bit lately figuring out what I like / don’t like, landing in Firefox more and more lately, with Chrome pulling at me, too, for speed and simplicity.

    Bad user interface design by the IE team, though, with the delete button.

  9. wickedpheonix

    11/03/2008 at 8:30 pm

    On my X200T I find myself using Chrome and Firefox:

    Chrome for whenever I’m not using pen/touch because it’s a better browser, period – simpler, faster, stabler (if 1 tab crashes it doesn’t bring down all the other tabs). Plus I like the layout better.

    Firefox for better tablet usage – Grab n’ Drop for instance (or whatever it’s called). If there was a NavDial or a jog dial on the X200T though I’d have dropped Firefox altogether by now, even now I only use Firefox on my desktop for the Internet Download Manager extension when I need to download large numbers of files at once.

  10. william

    11/04/2008 at 9:34 am

    Surely the best solution is if the button moved further to the right so that it was in the same column as the stop button? Am I missing something?

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