There was a debate recently, within the Seattle Tech Startups email forum, about the pros and cons of offering a right mouse-click option within Web applications.

The right-mouse click is, of course, a desktop paradigm, so the question is: when, if ever, is it a good idea to supersede the browser menu with your own right-click menu?

Here’s where we stand on this issue:

• Our users want it, overwhelmingly. Because Kerika’s user interface is consciously designed to mimic a desktop application, with simple mouse gestures for dragging cards across a project board or drawing on a canvas, our users naturally expect to have a right-click menu available.
• Our menu options are better than the browser defaults. The browser defaults are generic, of course, and have little value in the context of the Kerika application. For example, a commonly used browser action might be to select some text and then search for that on the Web. Within the Kerika application, this isn’t a particular useful or commonplace action. If you want to search for something related to a project, you probably want to search within Kerika itself, rather than the entire Web.
• The right-click menu is always supplemental, never central. We don’t offer anything on a right click menu, in any scenario, that isn’t also available through more explicit buttons or menu options. The right-click menu offers faster actions to commonplace actions, based upon user context, and it is designed for “power users” who want to absolutely minimize their mouse actions. For everyone else, regular menus and buttons offer all of Kerika’s functionality in a more explicit manner.
• The right-click menu is always contextual, never generic. If you are going to take over the right-click, make it count: don’t offer a generic set of actions, but instead offer a highly tailored, context-sensitive menu of actions. For example, if you are working with shapes on a canvas, the right-click menu offers fast access to changing the appearance of the objects. But if you are working with Web links on a canvas, the right-click menu offers a different set of choices, like switching between a bookmark and an embedded view.
• The right-click belongs on tablets, too. Something that’s often overlooked in this debate is that the right-click menu is easily accessible on iPads, too: a “long tap” acts as a right-click, so there’s no reason to not make use of that function.

What do you think? Let us know…