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I have a suggestion for the new profile picture function.

When you hover over your profile picture, a black partially transparent overlay menu slides up from the bottom of the image, with the link "change picture" on it. If you click on the empty space of this overlay, nothing happens, and this is counter-intuitive.

This link's usability could be improved by making the link take up the whole space of the black box. It is a little confusing that one must click on the words "change picture" themselves because they don't acquire an underline until hovering over them. It is not the place that one would expect a link to be floating: the box itself looks like the interactive element.

In the image below, the red box is the area you have to click on (or smaller) but it would be much easier if you could use the entire green box.

profile picture on hover

The rule of thumb for calculating the ease of hitting a target is its proximity times its size. According to this rule, making the target as big as the black overlay will yield a better user experience.

Perhaps just display:block and a fixed width and height on the a element will do the trick--but I haven't examined the html.

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I'd go with "overlay" for the term. –  Anna Lear Jan 25 '13 at 2:24

1 Answer 1

up vote 3 down vote accepted

This will be in the next build - good advice. I prefer the term "overlay menu" as well.

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I wonder how close to the fastest status-completed this is. :) –  ErikE Jan 25 '13 at 6:55

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