The - button in +/- buttons to condense the list items can be confused for removing a group from the list and therefore the user may be more cautious to click on it if they believe it will in fact remove the group. An open list is indicated by the down arrow to signify all the children below it, until the next sibling or the end of the list, belong to it. a closed list is indicated by the right arrow as neither the items above nor below it belong to it. Arrows ButtonsĪrrows can indicate either action or state - up-down arrows for action, right-down arrows for state.įor horizontal items that open a list, the up-down arrows should show an action, where down arrow is used to unfold the list, and the up arrow to fold it.įor vertically stacked items (vertical nav/folder structures), the right-down arrows should be used to indicate which children branches belong to it (so not an action), i.e. In general, buttons should indicate what action is going to be performed when clicked. This is what web developers should do, as well. The up and down arrow is poor interface design, no matter what. Note that the real interface design experts, those for operating systems, tend to do what I describe, or else use +/- instead. ![]() Half of interface designers decided "up" means "click to move this menu up and close it", the other half that it means "is already already up and closed".īut a right arrow clearly means "it's closed now, click to open". If you start out with a down or up arrow, the user has to wonder whether that means it's closed, or it's open-but-empty. This will be self-explanatory to the user, regardless of whether the second position is pointing up or down, because it's at a ninety-degree different angle. Instead, they should start with a right arrow/triagle/chevron, like ►, to show the item is closed, changing to down ▼ once open. Thus, I would always let the arrow point in the direction that the action will happen: If it drops down, point to the bottom.īecause of the very problem you identify, no interface should depend on down and up arrow to expand information. What I try to say is: Making it differently will oppose common standards and rather confuse. The UP arrow usually represents a "return to top", or a collapse functionality, while the DOWN arrow - even by default html - implies actions that OPEN something that is hidden. The reason for this is most likely PAGES in a book, where the next page is "after the current one", which requires an action on the right. The second point - standard implementation: If you take a look at mobile standards, you will find, that arrows that point left and right control a back-and-forth progress: The "back" button has a left pointing arrow and the right will point to the right. So this argument says: If arrow is pointing down, things should go down. So every action that goes to a different direction will feel alien, detached. You will automatically look up, not down. ![]() ![]() Do not duplicate in any form without permission.To the first point - visual connection: If you see an arrow that points up, you expect something to happen in that direction.
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