I don’t think it matters that the link preview covers the content because the preview should be where your attention is when you’re engaging with that feature. Now that it’s fairly standard for the content section to take up the middle ~1/3 of the screen, there’s plenty of empty space on both sides where the mouse cursor can be routinely kept out of the way. It’s more useful to have the cursor near the scrollbar or browser UI most of the time anyway. In fact, it’s optimal to keep the cursor in a set region of the screen when you aren’t using it so you always know where it is. Accidentally triggering the preview window can be a useful indicator that the cursor is in the wrong place a sub-optimal resting position.
(nodding) I hear that. One more note: other than using the link text as the title of the preview, I don’t see anything visually connecting the preview with the link. This makes the feature substantially less discoverable than the current solution, and it could potentially be confusing to have a seemingly random box suddenly appear on the side of the page for no immediately apparent reason if you accidentally hover over a link.
I don’t think it matters that the link preview covers the content because the preview should be where your attention is when you’re engaging with that feature. Now that it’s fairly standard for the content section to take up the middle ~1/3 of the screen, there’s plenty of empty space on both sides where the mouse cursor can be routinely kept out of the way. It’s more useful to have the cursor near the scrollbar or browser UI most of the time anyway. In fact, it’s optimal to keep the cursor in a set region of the screen when you aren’t using it so you always know where it is. Accidentally triggering the preview window can be a useful indicator that the cursor is in
the wrong placea sub-optimal resting position.I don’t want to force users to engage with the feature if they don’t want to, or keep their cursors in any particular place.
(nodding) I hear that. One more note: other than using the link text as the title of the preview, I don’t see anything visually connecting the preview with the link. This makes the feature substantially less discoverable than the current solution, and it could potentially be confusing to have a seemingly random box suddenly appear on the side of the page for no immediately apparent reason if you accidentally hover over a link.