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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

#131

Post by err4nt »

Lewton wrote: post #117
err4nt wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do a lot of responsive design, and I turn zooming off So I CAN give you a proper responsive design that you can read and interact with on a small touchscreen. Why on earth would you prefer to pan around a desktop site designed for a big screen with a tiny cursor when you've got a tiny screen and a massive cursor (fingertip)?

Consider your post score an informal poll....

Have I been on sites where I wished zoom was enabled? Yes

Have I been on sites where I wished zoom was DISabled? Yes

The point is, I design my stuff so it feels like a native app. I design my stuff so it is as accessible as the apps that came with the device. Zooming is a feature added to mobile browsers so mobile users have a fallback to view websites that dont support mobile screen sizes, but designing websites for mobile intentionally to make use of a fallback for non-mobile support isn't using the mobile device to its fullest potential?

Without zooming, how do you all use things on your phones that ARENT websites? They don't zoom either...

If I enable zooming for users, every tap on every mobile device is going to get slower for every user. Is that in the interest of better UI?

Do you think users tap more, or zoom more when using web apps?

Would you rather fill out a desktop Credit Card subscription form by zooming and panning around, or using a form designed to be input with a thumb where all of the fields are fit to the screen width?

I can tell you right now, if I designed our sites like some of these HN commenters want it would be comfy for them to browse and we would lose thousands of dollars revenue. As others have noticed, there are browsers that have a zoom override, as well as bookmarklets and other ways you can bypass the no-zoom thing if you're a mobile user with special needs or who likes zooming. YOU can enabled that device-wide for yourself if that's how you like it, but it doesn't make sense for all projects to be built the same way when the goals and intended support for projects varies widely.

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#132

Post by err4nt »

epistasis wrote: post #126
err4nt wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you able to articulate 5 or more of those plentiful reasons? The reasons I can think you would desire to zoom in on a legible, functional, accessible website would be for curiosity, or to see a detail closer and admire the layout. There are details like this in apps all the time and I screenshot it and zoom in on my screenshot. Those are interests (I want to see that closer) that are separate concerns from me usi…

Screenshotting is something that almost nobody knows how to do. And even if everybody did know how to screenshot, it's so much slower and inefficient that it's a completely unacceptable replacement for the natural, and designed zoom interface.

> Screenshotting is something that almost nobody knows how to do

I got a really good laugh at this one, a cursory glance of user-generated content online shows tons of people not only know how to screenshot their devices, but are quite adept at figuring out how to share those screenshots with each other and the world.

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#133

Post by DanBC »

err4nt wrote: post #131
Lewton wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider your post score an informal poll....

Have I been on sites where I wished zoom was enabled? Yes Have I been on sites where I wished zoom was DISabled? Yes The point is, I design my stuff so it feels like a native app. I design my stuff so it is as accessible as the apps that came with the device. Zooming is a feature added to mobile browsers so mobile users have a fallback to view websites that dont support mobile screen sizes, but designing websites for…

> Without zooming, how do you all use things on your phones that ARENT websites? They don't zoom either...

Yes they do!

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204390

>> Zoom

>> To enable Zoom, use three fingers and double-tap the screen.

>> To increase the level of Zoom, use three fingers to double-tap and hold, then move your fingers up or down on the screen to increase or decrease magnification.

> If I enable zooming for users, every tap on every mobile device is going to get slower for every user. Is that in the interest of better UI?

I do not understand your point.

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#134

Post by Lewton »

err4nt wrote: post #119
Lewton wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I try to zoom, it is already a demonstration that your design does not work for me on my device What? There's plenty of reasons to zoom even if the design is perfect.

Are you able to articulate 5 or more of those plentiful reasons? The reasons I can think you would desire to zoom in on a legible, functional, accessible website would be for curiosity, or to see a detail closer and admire the layout. There are details like this in apps all the time and I screenshot it and zoom in on my screenshot. Those are interests (I want to see that closer) that are separate concerns from me usi…

1. desirability to look at content more closely

2. see above

3. see above

4. see above

5. see above

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#135

Post by epistasis »

err4nt wrote: post #132
epistasis wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Screenshotting is something that almost nobody knows how to do. And even if everybody did know how to screenshot, it's so much slower and inefficient that it's a completely unacceptable replacement for the natural, and designed zoom interface.

> Screenshotting is something that almost nobody knows how to do I got a really good laugh at this one, a cursory glance of user-generated content online shows tons of people not only know how to screenshot their devices, but are quite adept at figuring out how to share those screenshots with each other and the world.

The world is a big place, even if tons of people can screenshot, that does not mean that many people know how.

If your audience is just those that can screenshot, and you are willing to block out others, go ahead. But don't call yourself a designer anymore.

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#136

Post by DanBC »

err4nt wrote: post #128
epistasis wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please please stop disabling zoom. I beg of you, I have to abandon sooo many sites because they are unreadable because I can't zoom. >I am a formally trained designer and I design UI properly for the devices and hardware my projects are intended to be accessed with. If designers were actually licensed, I think that disabling zoom should be an offense that results in a 2-year revocation of design license. It's so user…

These aren't my user pleas, and these users haven't even seen my sites. We do listen to our users, and there absolutely IS such thing as licensing in this industry: http://www.rgd.ca/

> http://www.rgd.ca/

Does it change your mind at all that you linked to a zoomable site?

EDIT: and an organisation that produced accessibility guides that tell you not to disable zoom?

http://rgd-accessibledesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/R...

> any low-vision users have software-based screen magnifiers. Sometimes they augment the magnifier with text-to-speech software when reading longer passages of text.

[...]

> to be truly accessible, a website must allow individual preferences in colour, size and typeface to override the author’s suggested design.

The website you provide to support your position tells you not to do what you're doing.

(Ironically, the accessibility guidelines are in an unaccessible PDF).

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#137

Post by Lewton »

err4nt wrote: post #131
Lewton wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider your post score an informal poll....

Have I been on sites where I wished zoom was enabled? Yes Have I been on sites where I wished zoom was DISabled? Yes The point is, I design my stuff so it feels like a native app. I design my stuff so it is as accessible as the apps that came with the device. Zooming is a feature added to mobile browsers so mobile users have a fallback to view websites that dont support mobile screen sizes, but designing websites for…

I've yet to see a web-app designed to look native, that worked better for me than the normal website would have on my phone. This is why I'm so skeptical

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#138

Post by jedberg »

err4nt wrote: post #80
cbaleanu wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I do a lot of responsive design, and I turn zooming off So I CAN give you a proper responsive design that you can read and interact with on a small touchscreen. Why on earth would you prefer to pan around a desktop site designed for a big screen with a tiny cursor when you've got a tiny screen and a massive cursor (fingertip)?

Even on a proper responsive design, sometimes the images are too small to read (like this article for example, which has screenshots of other phones).

Furthermore, even on my desktop I'll use zoom sometimes (you know you can zoom on the desktop too right?) because I can't read something, and it's a lot easier to zoom than to try and screenshot it and then enhance in some other program.

Further down you said you've been on sites where you wish zoom was disabled. Can you show me even a single example? Did you mean that you wish the designer hadn't relied on zoom for their page to work? Because that's a very different thing than "the site was perfectly ok on mobile but they had zoom on and I didn't want it on". In fact, if their design was good enough for zoom to be off, how did you even know they had it on?

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#139

Post by NathanCH »

brudgers wrote: post #108
Trufa wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's a matter of last resort, rather correct use. GUIs are inevitable. You basically should only ask from the user what a computer can't possibly know, for example what date you want to travel for your holidays and how many units of that product do you want.

"What day do you want to travel?" > NoGUI.

User: I want to travel the last week of august.

So, your program needs to calculate what date that is, or the user is will need to look at an external calendar (Windows GUI) to determine which date that is.

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#140

Post by devy »

Visit njtransit.com on the mobile phone, you will see they use dropdowns for station names and locations extensively. Some of the dropdown has a few hundred items there. Their site (njtransit.com) is probably the worst and yet one of the largest public transit company site in the U.S.
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