>4 tap operation
Click dropdown, select item
>Stepper
Click +, click +, click +, click +, click +, click +, click +
wut
Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort
21–30 of 241 posts
Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort
#22This really depends on the situation: imagine something as classic as a birthday selector, what would you use for a year selection? The only applicable alternative is a slider control, but such a slider with a 100+ values might be very hard to use with the needed precision. Another common example would be a list of countries (or any long list of words actually), you can't use a slider there, it would be very counter-…
Any problem with simply typing the information? It doesn't seem like it's that hard to type. A year selector just so someone can type four digits seems superfluous.
typing would involve 6 actions:
click, type 4 digits, return
a select would involve 3 or 4
Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort
#23This is the case for mobile phones. On a desktop or laptop, the dropdowns are preferable because most browsers will let you select the day, month year using your keyboard.
Do you think an average computer user fills out forms using just the keyboard? I'm a developer and I still use the mouse.
Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
And once again the top comment here is a meta-comment addressing the article formatting rather than the article itself. Can't we just let that stuff go and address the article itself?
In general I agree with you. (As do the mods, see what dang says here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 ) But this article is specifically about design for mobile, and it contains a design element that is hostile to mobile use; and we are unable to talk about the content of the article because a lot of it is in the images, which are unreadably small. It's also a bit disturbing that a comment asking for a w…
It's not my content, I don't know what made you think that. And mobile users aren't a "section of society", they're everyone. This isn't about exclusionism.
Yes, having an article about mobile UX design that isn't available on mobiles isn't good for mobile users, but it's no more hypocritical than a journal article about mobile UX design not being available on mobile, it's just the article being on a different form than the form being discussed. That happens, but it doesn't need to be the focus of discussion.
Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
And once again the top comment here is a meta-comment addressing the article formatting rather than the article itself. Can't we just let that stuff go and address the article itself?
Actually, in this particular case, I'd argue that this is incredibly relevant: Preacher preaches against UX sin. Commits UX sin with a non-zooming harlot.
Absolutely. Meta comments are often more important than the article they comment on, especially when they place the worthiness of an article in proper context.
Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any problem with simply typing the information? It doesn't seem like it's that hard to type. A year selector just so someone can type four digits seems superfluous.
typing would involve 6 actions: click, type 4 digits, return a select would involve 3 or 4
You forgot "searching" (or maybe "locating"?), which takes quite a while when you have several dozen choices.
Just let me type those four digits! It's much faster in the end.
Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort
#27IMHO the best option for inputting a small integer value is the combination of a text field and a stepper, which has been around for a long time and has its own name (for touchscreen operation, the +/- buttons could be made larger and horizontally, like the steppers shown): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinner_(computing) For dates, a calendar control would probably be appropriate. I'm a bit puzzled as to why dropdo…
I find myself having to manually close dropdown menus on my iPhone 5s.
1. Click to open 2. Scroll 3. Select Option 4. Click to close
Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
In general I agree with you. (As do the mods, see what dang says here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 ) But this article is specifically about design for mobile, and it contains a design element that is hostile to mobile use; and we are unable to talk about the content of the article because a lot of it is in the images, which are unreadably small. It's also a bit disturbing that a comment asking for a w…
It's not my content, I don't know what made you think that. And mobile users aren't a "section of society", they're everyone. This isn't about exclusionism. Yes, having an article about mobile UX design that isn't available on mobiles isn't good for mobile users, but it's no more hypocritical than a journal article about mobile UX design not being available on mobile, it's just the article being on a different form t…
Sorry about the "your", I had thought I edited that out.
Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort
#29There is a small irony that when reading an article about mobile UX, the website has disabled zoom meaning I can't actually see any of the images in the article.
And once again the top comment here is a meta-comment addressing the article formatting rather than the article itself. Can't we just let that stuff go and address the article itself?
To zoom on the first picture, i tried pinch zoom --> didnt work --> tried clicking --> took me to twitter --> again had to click on the image --> again didnt work.
Finally read the article by guessing what is happening in the image.
Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort
#30>4 tap operation Click dropdown, select item >Stepper Click +, click +, click +, click +, click +, click +, click + wut
Lot of the advice in the article would fail in some situations like the one you point out.
Unless the quantity is less than 5, tap to increase doesn't make sense.
Also, the slider wouldn't work in case you are trying to choose from an even average sized list on "min" or "max" side. There are only so many pixels in portrait mode and my big thumb - how can you expect it to be so precise. While in case of the dropdown in almost 2 scrolls i can get to the exact number by varying the speed of scroll, like binary search.
Some of the points are correct though, i don't see many people making those mistakes.