Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?

Is this a legacy thing or does a tilted cursor serves a purpose? I can tell that, the angle provides a totally vertical left edge which helps when highlighting text but what else apart from that?
EDIT: When cursor is swapped by the little…
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CAPTCHA on mobile: what are the alternatives?

From a UX perspective, CAPTCHA’s are bad, bad, bad.
But let’s say we have this as a requirement. And it’s for a hybrid app (compiled app, but built upon an HTML5 platform).
I’m trying to find out:
is bot traffic from an iPhone (or And…
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Why is the Windows taskbar default at the bottom?

In Windows operating systems the taskbars default position is at the bottom. Why is that so? Especially it is strange to me because all windows application have their main menu bar at the top. To me it makes more sense to have the main ope…
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How to make a button look disabled

Hopefully this isn’t too specific for here. I have the following button image that I use on my site
Here’s an example with text:
This is rendered using the following CSS:
input.borderlessButton {
background: url(“../Images/butto…
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Mark or don’t mark required fields if all are required?

If all fields in a form are required should they be marked somehow (eg. with an asterisk)?
I see this done a lot and find it redundant?
There could be a difference in big forms and small forms, but in big ones I would add a note at the t…
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Why do washing machines have windows?

I’m curious why every front-loaded washing machine I’ve seen so far comes with a window, while other household machines, like dishwashers, don’t.
From a design or UI/UX perspective, why would one want a user to be able to see their cloth…
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User interface for multi-dimensional data presented as lists

I have an application that lists all the modules loaded in a performance test in a baseline and a current testrun. Each run in turn has many iterations. A user can view the difference of what was loaded in the baseline versus current acros…
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What are the UI/UX guidelines for data heavy modern style Windows apps?

I’m working on an application that uses the Windows “modern” design language (née Metro). The app involves a lot of data entry and manipulation. Think of something like you might do with MS Access – master detail, forms, queries/filters, e…
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What is more accurate "Click in the checkbox" or "Click on the checkbox"

I have a checkbox on one of the pages i am designing.
My original suggestion was to have this text “Click on the checkbox….”.
However the technical writer is saying it should be “Click in the checkbox”
What do you think is more accurat…
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Is using a sentence as a search filter better to engage the user compared to showing featured items?

In a marketplace, what do you think will be better: Making a sentence that the user completes by picking from several options that lead to results base on his request, or just showing featured items (most sold, most popular, etc.)?
For ex…