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Interesting. What would you expect to happen when you click on that image? We weren't sure what to do with that link, so we just had it take you to the main page. This seems to be a pretty common pattern (Reddit, Digg, and Favebook all behave similarly), but if this goes against user's expectations, we'd happily change it.

When you are already on the main page it should not be a link.

Are you really bothered by this? For example reddit and news.yc does the same, I don't see it as a problem. Odd? Yes. Standard? Yes.

Being a web-savvy person myself, I'm not thrown by this particular usability error. It's an easy one to make when working with templates; I have pages myself with this problem. However, I do think it's worth pointing out.

It's standard just like stubbing your toe is standard. Everybody does it sometimes, but it's worth avoiding.

See #10 on this list:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20031110.html

I guess you are right, it is worth avoiding. I am just so used to that behavior that it is what I expect a page to do, but I guess another way to refresh the page doesn't justify confusing the user.

Btw, I was just checking how sites handle this, and here's an innovative approach by Nokia: Let the Home-link take you to a totally different page if you are already on Home:

http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/index.htm

;)

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