(Megathread) Misleading UX: Elements that don't do what they're implied to do

This thread is for reporting misleading UX that doesn’t do what it implies. It’s a megathread because most issues of this nature are so small that individual threads for each would be cumbersome and only make them more difficult to sort out.

Misleading UX includes:

  • “this looks like it’s clickable but it’s not”
  • “this button looks like it goes to the next page but functions as “read more””
  • “This looked like a normal button but it took me to a new page”

Misleading UX does not include:

  • UX issues, but ones that aren’t misleading, e.g. “this button is too small”
  • UI Issues such as “this color doesn’t match”
  • Web bugs/features

Also note that if you find an issue with a new or recently overhauled page, even if it involves misleading UX, you may be better off posting the issue on the release thread where it’ll be seen by the relevant people more quickly. If the issue is with a page that has yet to be overhauled, feel free to post it, but know that the issue will probably go away on its own when the page is redesigned.

The player’s name in the sidebar is a clickable link to the player’s Profile, but shows now signs of being so. IMO this is redundant because there’s already a dedicated Profile button in the sidebar, and the player’s name should not be clickable.

The player’s name and portrait on the Home page are clickable (lead to Profile page), but show no indication of doing so. As with the name in the sidebar, I feel this is redundant, players should just use the sidebar for navigation, and the player portrait/name should not be clickable

The icon and the “Past usernames” label beside it are not visibly different, so I’d expect to be able to hover over “Past usernames” as well, but I can’t – only the icon. I’d suggest expanding the hover area to include “Past usernames” to resolve this because the icon is already pretty small and difficult to hover over.

All links in the new inbox/news page are not obvious.
Gets more confusing in the news page as it implies you can click all of it.

Links in the inbox seem fine for me. I had ROBLOX+ enabled in the following screenshot, but I tested with all extensions disabled and the link was still fine:

As for the News tab, I’m experiencing the issue as well. The whole thing appears to be clickable because it is – clicking it anywhere (besides a link) will minimize the message. Links aren’t visibly clickable (or even distinguishable) though:

so it’s difficult to tell what clicking will do. If links were highlighted I don’t think there’d be much of an issue.

Ah, it appears fine when it is the full link, but when you get the “You have a Trade request from X” messages, the link isn’t highlighted.

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@pauljkl is talking about this:

“Trades tab” isn’t highlighted, how am I supposed to know I can click it?

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I made ROBLOX ugly temporarily by highlighting all anchor tags (and elements with ng-click or onclick attributes) to see their areas of effect. Anything not orange won’t do anything when clicked, even if the cursor is set to pointer.

It’s interesting to know there’s spaces on items that do nothing:

Look at all those gaps, which I know has been spoken about before:

The bottom section of items isn’t (aren’t?) clickable:

ROBLOX isn’t clickable on the transactions page despite everything else being clickable, not to mention you can only click on the image:

Both of these are links on the group audit log page, Audit Log just goes to the audit log you are viewing (what’s the point?) and the name of the group takes you back to the group page (very useful but very obscure):

The group image on the group settings page in group admin takes you back to the group page. Instead of this, if you’re the owner it should also be something to prompt you to upload a new image, otherwise do nothing:

A few of these are on old pages, but ROBLOX has a tendency to make the same mistakes twice if not warned.

4 Likes

I can’t sell this item, the button does nothing

That’s currently a known bug. It’s intended to be able to be sold.

The title of a game on a user’s profile should go to the game when it’s clicked. Having to click on the game icon doesn’t really make sense.

That’s not really misleading – the title doesn’t imply it’s clickable. Might be better off in its own feature request.

I would assume it was clickable.

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