Raymond Chen discussed some of the consequences of a single click - although he says in the context of Windows that he says it has to do with browser-based user interface design.
In principle, an action performed by a double click should be the logical thing to do after one click. So, for example, in the user interface of the desktop, one click selects an item, and double-clicking opens it (for example, opens a file or launches an application). The user will have to select a file to open it anyway, so it doesn’t matter that the one-click action is performed before the double-click action.
If you have a user interface component whose double-click action is not completely related to the one-click action, so it becomes necessary to prevent a one-time action when the system realizes that it is actually a double click, then you really need to rethink your design. Users will find this inconvenient and inconsistent, because it will not act the way they are used to doing.
If you still want to go this route, you will either have to use the debouncing method (in this case, all actions with one click will be postponed), or implement some mechanism by which the double-click handler cancels the work performed by the single-click handler.
You should also be aware that some users have set a very long double-click time. Someone who, for example, has arthritic hands, can double-click more than the second set in their system preferences, so the debouncing method, based on some arbitrary time period of your choice, will make your user interface component inaccessible to these people, if the adoption of a single click action excludes the adoption of a double-click action. To my knowledge, the “undo what just happened with one click” method is the only viable workaround.
NickFitz Jul 01 '09 at 9:59 2009-07-01 09:59
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