Snap Preview Facility

Snap Preview Facility by Brian Kelly | Mar 30, 2007 | Blog | 8 comments A WordPress feature which is enabled by default is the preview of the destination of links, which is displayed when you move the mouse over hyperlink. This feature, which is illustrated in the screen shot, is provided by Snap . That’s cool, I thought when I first came across this. And I still find it useful: I get a feel for the destination of a link before clicking and waiting for the page to be retrieved. However a couple of people have commented on this blog that they don’t like Snap. And on 22 February 2007 the Guardian’s Online supplement featured an article entitled Is Snap Preview the most hated Web 2.0 function ever? The following week the letters page contained several letters in agreement with this sentiment, with just one, from the director of Snap, which sought to make a case for Snap. I’ve argued previously about the benefits of giving users options to choose their preferred settings, rather than the the service provider making the choice on behalf of the user community. So how should I resolve this dilemma? It does seem to me that the Snap facility does allow the user to select various configuration options (the time before the popup display occurs, its size; etc.). In addition Snap can easily be disabled by clicking on the clearly marked Disable option. So users do have choice. But if I were to disable this feature on the blog (as I am able to do) wouldn’t I be removing choice from the users? What should I do? Do I respond to the loudest voice? Or the largest numbers (and maybe persecute a minority)? Is there a fair and equitable solution? Technorati Tags : snap 8 Comments ajcann on March 30, 2007 at 11:23 am Personally, I hate Snap Preview and I feel it can cause problems with accessibility, although I don’t have any data to support that view yet. My real beef though is with wordpress.com which enabled Snap Preview as the default on all blogs, INCLUDING EXISTING ONES. This is very bad behavior and damages user confidence. The correct thing to do of course would have been to make it available to users but with the default setting as off, and certainly not to piss off longstanding bloggers who don’t want it. TURN IT OFF BRIAN!!! (loud enough?)

P.S. A few readers have asked which shared & managed wordpress hosting we actually reach for — it's SiteGround; take a look here if you want the current details.