Smooth Scrolling

Did u ever get confused on one of them sites where u click on a link and it takes u to the 30th paragraph on a page filled with enough text to be in a government report. Well a cool feature I came across which I believe encapsulates the idea of HCI is a JavaScript function which instead of jumping all the way down....or jumping all the way up, scrolls through until it reaches the section you wanted.

Although not exactly ground breaking, it is a feature that adds those small things to an interface which all add up to a good user experience. From a HCI design perspective, all interfaces need to show the user what is happening rather than just doing things from a functionality point of view. That means that interfaces should include loading bars to inform the user how long it will take to finish the process and other features such as scroll bars that change size depending on how much input there is in the text box.

Click here to view the scroll effect in action

or here to view the actual code for the script

Furthermore, another feature that I saw using JavaScript (can't remember the site now) was that when a user clicked on a text box to type something in, the web page immediately put a red border around the box. In effect its these small features that add to the usability of a site or application.