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Sanding UI

blog.jim-nielsen.com

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Re: Sanding UI

#191

Post by robin_reala »

7bit wrote: post #183
robin_reala wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day it’s your users’ problem. Ideally their assistive tech would work, but if it doesn’t and you’ve got an easy fix then you should implement that fix.

I disagree. Of course you could fix that. But that would mean that you can fix a thousand and one issues that's caused by other softwares erroneous content handling. Which leads to nothing but bloat and introduces just more code that could come with more bugs. If your software works and is designed as intended, then sometimes it stays the users problem. Unfortunate, but otherwise problems will stay forever.

Your software isn’t working, because the user cannot use it. Your UI is always a combination of whatever hardware and software come together to give an experience. Everyone chooses to marginalise certain segments of users’ technologies – I don’t support IE any more of course – but I typically won’t drop support for technologies that are vital assistive technologies for that segment of users.

(If you need a personal story to bring it home, the only way my dad, a programmer in the 70s-90s, could continue to use computers when he suffered from MND / ALS, was to use voice control software.)

Re: Sanding UI

#192

Post by parasti »

dmix wrote: post #79
ddtaylor wrote: post #29

The goto tactic for this specific ` ` problem is: Foo

Bootstrap moved from in 4.0 to + in 5.0 for radios/checkboxes [1]. I was curious about why but my guess is that it adds some simplicity for theming when repositioning/padding either the label or input. [1] https://getbootstrap.com/docs/5.3/forms/checks-radios/

They more than likely made that decision to be able to style the label based on input state using the + sibling selector. I use that trick for literally every visible input now.

Re: Sanding UI

#193

Post by abdusco »

dmix wrote: post #79
ddtaylor wrote: post #29

The goto tactic for this specific ` ` problem is: Foo

Bootstrap moved from in 4.0 to + in 5.0 for radios/checkboxes [1]. I was curious about why but my guess is that it adds some simplicity for theming when repositioning/padding either the label or input. [1] https://getbootstrap.com/docs/5.3/forms/checks-radios/

I think it's for material design inspired focus animations. :has selector wasn't a thing, so you have to use + sibling selector to target the label of a focused input

    input:focus + label {} 
    label:has(input:focus) {}

Re: Sanding UI

#194

Post by duckmysick »

hipadev23 wrote: post #146
duckmysick wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this suppose to prove? The OP said "very few" not none. Of course there will be a few anecdotes of overlap. A better way would be to compare the size of Stack Exchange boards at https://stackexchange.com/sites . It's not perfect but it's as good as it can get. Stack Overflow has 26 million users. Woodworking has 17 thousand. A fraction. Further still, not every woodworker will use a belt sander. It's used f…

You and him are incorrigible. Him for the naive assumption and stereotype that “techies” don’t do any manual trades or crafts, you for looking at the count of activity on stack fucking overflow for woodworking.

That's not the assumption I got from the OP's comment. What I got was - and I agree - that the intersection between the members of the technical field (specifically those responsible for apps UI) and the members of the woodworking field who also use an advanced, single-purpose tool is tiny. The assumption will be the same if you replace the belt sander with a guitar amplifier, a lawn aerator, or a pressure canner and woodworking with their respective hobbies.

If you have better data that shows an overlap between those in the technical field and those that do woodworking with highly specialized tools, I'm all ears; I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

In the meantime, here's another anecdote for you - I do woodworking (and gardening and constructions) and I don't own a belt sander.

Re: Sanding UI

#195

Post by RockRobotRock »

dsissitka wrote: post #151
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FastMail has one of the best-feeling web apps I've ever used. It's incredibly snappy and I never encountered any bugs while using it. They raised the bar for what I thought a web app could achieve.

I think the only thing I really dislike about Fastmail's UI is they've hidden the "Report phishing" and "Report spam" links and they're in two completely different places.

To clarify:

There's a menu bar for the entire email chain, and an "Actions" button for each mail message. Report Spam is only available in the former, and Report Phishing is only available in the latter.

I agree, it's annoying! Maybe someone at Fastmail will see this.

Re: Sanding UI

#196

Post by vishnugupta »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #118
xyst wrote: post #80

I wonder what’s the most polished or “sanded” UI out there? You would think FAANG would have a half decent UI and UX with the amount of money they have. But anybody that has used Amazon.com or AWS, GCP, or even Azure would beg to differ. Personally, off the top of my head. The most polished UI/UX has to be “mcmaster.com”. I can find anything I need in what seems like a couple minutes. Compare this to big box stores l…

FastMail has one of the best-feeling web apps I've ever used. It's incredibly snappy and I never encountered any bugs while using it. They raised the bar for what I thought a web app could achieve.

+1 to Fastmail. More so after I discovered their shortcut keys.

Re: Sanding UI

#197

Post by kchr »

ix101 wrote: post #77
pentagrama wrote: post #34

Is so important have people with that spark to see and fix those little UX issues, a good analogy used on UX design is papercuts for the user, not critical but it degrades user satisfaction. To the author I will add that that radio button is not following the convension of a dot for the selected state instead of a check. Users may think at first sight that multiple/no selection is possible.

One I've experienced on GitHub and Jira is dragging to select text on a dialog, if you release outside the dialog the mouse up event dismisses the pop up which is probably a side effect of being able to click outside the dialog to dismiss it.

This could probably be fixed by tracking whether the mousedown event was started inside or outside the dialog, and only close the dialog if the mousedown started outside it.

Re: Sanding UI

#198

Post by thom »

handsclean wrote: post #157
dataviz1000 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also very easy to develop systematic automated ways to do this with tools like Playwright and Nut.js.

Ok, how would you use Playwright and Nut.js to discover the OP’s “splinter”? Note I’m specifically asking about discovery, not testing for it once you already know what to look for.

I've actually been thinking lately about property based testing for UIs. In this particularly case, there should be an invariant for each entry in a radio button list that the selectable area covers the entire bounding box from button to the end of the label. There are many such invariants you could imagine - every paragraph of text should be selectable by a click and drag, menu drop downs shouldn't hide as long as the mouse is within its area etc. Build up a big enough suite of these tests and you could quite easily integrate them in Storybook or beyond. Probably not something you want to run on every save, but an asynchronous process running somewhere recreating this "sanding" activity would be a worth way of saving time and improving quality.

Re: Sanding UI

#199

Post by duckmysick »

michaelbarton wrote: post #107
timzaman wrote: post #82

Decent analogy. I wonder how many techies have ever used a belt sander. Or have one. I think very, very few.

I have not used a belt sander! I prefer to start with a planer, then use an orbital sander! Generally work from 60 grit up to 220 depending on the surface. Popping the grain and covering the whole surface in pencil marks in between each! For anyone seriously interested in how to get a great finishing with sanding here’s the guide I follow: https://www.blacktailstudio.com/blog/how-to-sand-wood-proper...

Thanks for posting it! Good point about adding the right lighting rig, haven't thought about.

I use a planer a lot but I'm still struggling with making multiple passes down a wide piece of wood. I often end up with grooves. I've gotten better over time but I'm still not happy with the results.

Re: Sanding UI

#200

Post by thom »

thom wrote: post #198
handsclean wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, how would you use Playwright and Nut.js to discover the OP’s “splinter”? Note I’m specifically asking about discovery, not testing for it once you already know what to look for.

I've actually been thinking lately about property based testing for UIs. In this particularly case, there should be an invariant for each entry in a radio button list that the selectable area covers the entire bounding box from button to the end of the label. There are many such invariants you could imagine - every paragraph of text should be selectable by a click and drag, menu drop downs shouldn't hide as long as t…

Obviously this won't catch everything human QA can, but where an invariant can be expressed (navigating then going back should result in being in the right place, as mentioned in the article) it seems good to try and capture it.
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