My main complaint is that on Firefox on Linux anyway they actually steal the mouse position along with keyboard focus. So if you're using something like instagram's IM it's really hard to type while getting replies.
Toasts are bad UX
11–20 of 401 posts
Re: Toasts are bad UX
#12Toasts are bad UX for an app which is used in a casual context, yes. The odds that an untrained user missed them and becomes confused are quite high. But there is nothing wrong with a toast in a pro app. The pro user will get used to where feedback comes from on the screen and find it is second nature to notice the toast. In practice, there are very few UX principles that generalize across every interface.
Just because somebody will put up with it doesn't make it a good choice. That rationalization has been used to justify a lot of awful decisions and awful software.
Re: Toasts are bad UX
#13Maybe bad UX, but global error / success handling of network requests is way easier than handling in every component that triggers one.
I don't think that's a convincing argument unless you are a tiny company that has to optimize for development time. You can also wonder why the frameworks you are using make this hard, because it's a pretty common to want feedback close to where the action happens.
Re: Toasts are bad UX
#14The solutions seem to rely on a user that doesn't navigate before the action is completed. Does he propose locking the UI in the meantime, or to optimistically show the user a success result?
Came here for exactly this, the post is proposing a solution while only understanding one half of the problem.
Toasts are a global UI feedback mechanism for non-blocking/fallible/undo-able actions. That does make them out-of-place by default, but at least consistently so.
A solution I'd accept is local-view-first with toasts-as-fallback when the view is dismissed. That said, loading indicators _might_ make users hesitant to dismiss a view.
Re: Toasts are bad UX
#15I haven't heard many developers/designers talk about the overused practice of using toasts for UI feedback. The post shares a few real-world examples and illustrates some of the problems with how they use toasts. What do you think? Are toasts overused? In which cases do you use them in your own apps?
I'd speculate that their overuse comes from convenience of displaying any message by throwing in a `showToast("Foo!")` opposed to altering each UI component to show the relevant feedback.
That cuts both ways IMO. At least with a toast system I know where feedback appear on a per app basis (or website or whatever). Imagine if every screen, view, list entry, checkbox had its own way of displaying feedback. It would be an enormous amount of overhead.
Re: Toasts are bad UX
#16Timed toasts are bad for accessibility too, see WCAG 2.2: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/#enough-time
Basically, the user should be able to configure toast messages; they should not autohide, or the time they hide should be adjustable, or they should be extendable within 20 seconds. TL;DR, self-hiding messages, dialogs, etc are not good for a11y.
That said, the toasts have a button where the user can undo the action taken, which is good for accessibility under criteria 2.5.2 and/or 3.3.4 / 3.3.6
Re: Toasts are bad UX
#17Always = in Material design
Re: Toasts are bad UX
#18Toasts are bad UX for an app which is used in a casual context, yes. The odds that an untrained user missed them and becomes confused are quite high. But there is nothing wrong with a toast in a pro app. The pro user will get used to where feedback comes from on the screen and find it is second nature to notice the toast. In practice, there are very few UX principles that generalize across every interface.
I will say as someone with a limited visual field, toasts are very frustrating as they're almost always out of my field of view. Please keep indicators/notifications close to the thing that caused it.
Re: Toasts are bad UX
#19this seems like an example of a mobile interaction pattern being blindly applied to desktop site
Re: Toasts are bad UX
#20I haven't heard many developers/designers talk about the overused practice of using toasts for UI feedback. The post shares a few real-world examples and illustrates some of the problems with how they use toasts. What do you think? Are toasts overused? In which cases do you use them in your own apps?
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A lesson for us all: no matter how obvious a metaphor may seem to us, it isn't obvious to everyone.
90% sure it's called this because toast is what pops up out of a toaster.
https://dribbble.com/shots/3072186-Pop-up-toaster-motion-des...