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Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

lukew.com

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Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#61

Post by eterm »

liviu- wrote: post #20
eterm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tap to bring up the dropdown Tap to start it scrolling it downward Tap to stop it scrolling downward Tap to select the actual item you'd like edit: Just noticed you were quoting the grandparent comment to this comment, this is addressing that.

>Tap to start it scrolling it downward >Tap to stop it scrolling downward Always thought this is a one tap (and hold/swipe) operation?

It might depend on the length of list, and phone and browser, but a quick swipe usually starts it scrolling down, and a quick tap will stop it (there's usually some momentum, it'll stop itself eventually too).

For a short scroll then a single hold and swipe will work.

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#62

Post by lnanek2 »

ivanhoe wrote: post #15

This 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-…

I see country drop downs that allowed typing as well to selection. Usually it's some Javascript UI widget that does progressive enhancement, but it is available.

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#63

Post by lftl »

bite_victim wrote: post #44
deanclatworthy wrote: post #7

There 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.

Yes, the internet is full of these so called experts. How do they end up being upvoted here is telling about the quality of the average reader unfortunately. Sorry if I am hurting feelings here but it is true. You have to be a special flake if you think this is quality content. So please, go ahead with your reactions, they speak volumes about who exactly is the gross of HN.

This article made me think about my usage of dropdowns on mobile, and presented a few alternatives that I'll probably reach for more often now.

As far as people being so called experts I'm not sure you're going to find someone with much more experience than Luke:

http://www.lukew.com/about/

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#64

Post by cbaleanu »

pgrimes wrote: post #53
cbaleanu wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome on Android has a very useful setting to force zoom. Go to Settings - Accessibility - Force Enable Zoom - Profit :) Not sure if Safari has something similar though.

But should expect our audience to do extra work to make something usable?

Absolutely not. Disabling default zoom behavior is like hijacking the scroll bar - bad, ugly and puts users off.

Also horrible is the tri state or undeterminate checkbox.

All of the above are very trendy pieces of 'css and html codes' commonly found on popular DIY web dev sites.

*edit: spelling

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#66

Post by [deleted] »

minikites wrote: post #51
kalleboo wrote: post #16

This reminds me of one of my pet peeves about the iOS UI - the date picker control. Yes, the scrolly spinners are a very cute UI and look awesome. But it'd be 10x faster if they'd just give me a number pad and let me hit the 8 digits rather than scroll up and down to get it just right.

MM/DD or DD/MM?

[deleted]

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#67

Post by pyre »

justuk wrote: post #59

I dislike the way mobile has become the new lowest common denominator for web development. It used to be IE6 because it was antiquated but now it's anything with a touch screen - mainly thinking how hover has been relegated to visual effects even though it's fine on non-touchscreens.

> mainly thinking how hover has been relegated to visual effects even though it's fine on non-touchscreens.

It's fine to make it (hover effects) functional for desktop users rather than just using it for visuals, but you need to make sure that said functionality exists in another form for mobile. Otherwise, you're just giving a be "F* You!" to mobile users since the experience on your site is broken.

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#68

Post by iopq »

andrewingram wrote: post #23
aembleton wrote: post #3

This 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.

Do you think I can guess where "United States" is in your country dropdown?

Oh, it's the sixth country, even though everything else is alphabetic order, but Sweden is on top because apparently you're based in Sweden and so is Denmark and Norway because apparently you have a lot of customers there.

But I'm supposed to know this while looking under U and seeing "United States minor islands"? It's really annoying, I just type United and it usually jumps to the correct thing (the first United it sees)

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#69

Post by vtlynch »

vortico wrote: post #21

>4 tap operation Click dropdown, select item >Stepper Click +, click +, click +, click +, click +, click +, click + wut

Two points:

-In this specific context, I would think the large majority of people are flying with a party of 3 or less. So it should be less clicks for most.

-Thinking more broadly, just because you may need to click the stepper more I wouldnt necessarily say its more complex. The user should immediately understand that each increment is equivalent.

When I click a dropdown, there is a lot of thinking required. I can't see the options before clicking it. Maybe it starts at "0", maybe it starts at "1". Maybe its all text choices and I have to read them all in that tiny window. Maybe I over-spin. There is actually a good amount of dexterity involved.

Even if I have to hit the stepper 10 times, a user can do that incredibly quickly and without having to actively use their brain.

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#70

Post by warbastard »

ivanhoe wrote: post #15

This 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-…

Depending on the length of the list, if you need to encourage correct spelling and have a list where the user knows the answer without needing to look at all the options (eg a country) then typeahead (autocomplete) functionality can work well here.
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