Overriding the right-click context menu in web browsers - pros and cons

Question

We are programming a web application (not \'just\' a web site, but functionality-wise a real application), and have the following discussion for the next release:

Answer 1

because he wants the web app to be more like our (existing) Windows app

I think right-click in a Windows app is a bad idea.

In a web browser it's a UI disaster because nobody will be expecting it.

Answer 2

An argument I would use (in quotes for dramatic effect):

Lack of consistency & reduced functionality compared to other unhindered web interfaces will lead to a loss of user confidence - which is undesirable to say the least.

Of course, if many or most of the web application users are already familiar with or regular users of the Windows app, the UI designer could be on the right track and the consistency with the Windows app could be a winner.

That said, in my opinion it's hard to make a custom context-menu within a web page intuitive, and while some users might warm to it, I'm guessing most will probably never use it.

Answer 3

I personally believe you should leave browser's default behaviors alone... users are used to them, so no need to get them used to your way of doing things.

However, if you're building an intranet (instead of a public site), then I'm for tweaking as much as possible to improve usability.

Answer 4

depending on your audience you stand a very good chance your users do not even KNOW there's a right click menu. So please don't make this the only alternative

Answer 5

I think it depends on whether you perceive the context-menu as part of the browsers chrome or not. If you do (and I ascribe to this view), then it should be off target, but otherwise it is a good place for adding some usability to your application.

Answer 6

You can't do that reliably anyway. In Firefox, go to Settings, Contents, JavaScript/Advanced (I'm guessing the captions, no English Firefox (; ) to override context menu behaviour and bang, your app doesn't work anymore. My online-banking application did this in their old version, so I couldn't do copy & paste with the mouse. I hated it, so I enabled the protection in Firefox and it worked. Kind of. Their new version doesn't do such bad things anymore.

Instead, use a little drop-down arrow where a context menu is needed, that can either be clicked or just hovered over to show the menu. JetBrains' TeamCity web app does that very well.