Killing Amazon.com MouseOver Popovers
by Josh Staiger
It's a situation that's all too common. You're shopping Amazon.com, for the latest latest Harry Potter book. You try to position your mouse pointer in the search input box... but - oops! You overshoot by half an inch. Your pointer sadly finds its way into the "See all 31 Product Categories tab". Uh oh...why is this huge white box now covering the entire search input form?
Who's in charge here? Jeff Bezos, I'm looking at you.
OnMouseOver popovers (including mousover drop-down menus) are one of the worst UI design elements in use on the web today. What's more disturbing is their use seems to be on the rise for navigation elements of popular sites. I expect this behavior from advertising sleaze. I even expect it from ESPN.com. But Amazon? Say it ain't so.
Thanks to Greasemonkey, we no longer have to live with this affliction.
I've written a short greasemonkey script that removes the most annoying popovers from Amazon.com.
As always, head to the project page for downloads and details.
Technorati tags: Amazon, Greasemonkey