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Toasts are bad UX

maxschmitt.me

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Re: Toasts are bad UX

#311

Post by lolinder »

jayd16 wrote: post #306
lolinder wrote: post #46

I'm not convinced. Most of the argument seems to be that redundant UX is bad UX: > But by archiving the email, the email disappears from the list, which already implies the action was successful. > In this example, the button already includes a confirmation so the toast is entirely unnecessary. I vehemently disagree with the idea that just because you're already communicating something one way it's bad UX to include…

"At best they're redundant" sounds pretty bad to me.

You apparently missed the bit where redundancy in communication is a feature, not a bug. "It ensures that even in less than ideal conditions the message still gets through."

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#312

Post by seanmcdirmid »

JamesSwift wrote: post #117
cowsandmilk wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unfortunate thing is they aren’t communicating the same thing. Taking the YouTube example, the checkboxes are 100% optimistic while the toast notification indicates that the request to the backend that was fired off asynchronously was successful. With the archive message example, it is the same thing. The message is removed from the list optimistically and the toast message is representing that the message was ac…

I mentioned this in another comment, but the whole reason the archive is able to be optimistic is partially because they offer the undo via toast. Otherwise its likely they would add an 'are you sure' plus a loading-state when doing these "semi-destructive" actions.

Undo via ephemeral toast seems like a bad idea also. I guess if the toast hanged around until the next toast it might make sense?

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#313

Post by hn_acker »

xelamonster wrote: post #282
bigblind wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two main things for me are: - Put cause and effect close to eachother - Don't block my view based on mouse position. I hate video players that ofverlay the pause button when the mouse is over the video, or images that get obscured by some overlay when hovered. My zoom follows the mouse, so I can't move what I'm looking at and where my mouse is pointing independently.

Oh yeah those video players are awful for anyone on mobile too, always ends up somehow getting stuck active and the only way to dismiss it is tap the video, which of course is usually bound to some other disruptive action like pausing or exiting full-screen mode.

Adding to your examples, I hate when video players (both mobile or desktop) don't let me hide the video player controls when the player is paused! I also dislike having to wait a few seconds upon starting/resuming a video for the controls to fade away.

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#315

Post by ilt »

I wonder if having a dedicated area for all kinds of toasts from all kinds of websites will help? Like some websites have a top-sticky toasts where important messages appear. Dedicated area will also ensure that (after a small one-time learning curve) user will get accustomed to such toasts and may even look forward to them as a form of validation and particularly when they need to really use that toast because they want to revert a certain action. Those stickies can be made optional if user wants to opt out of them since they will by nature drag the whole webpage downwards by some pixels and can feel jarring to some.

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#316

Post by cheema33 »

bigblind wrote: post #271
xelamonster wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of design choices do you find helpful with using a magnifier like that? It's not something I'd ever considered before, sounds tricky to design for but I'll try to keep it in mind now.

The two main things for me are: - Put cause and effect close to eachother - Don't block my view based on mouse position. I hate video players that ofverlay the pause button when the mouse is over the video, or images that get obscured by some overlay when hovered. My zoom follows the mouse, so I can't move what I'm looking at and where my mouse is pointing independently.

> I hate video players that overlay the pause button when the mouse is over the video, or images that get obscured by some overlay when hovered.

This shit is super annoying for everyone. Even people who do not use magnifiers. Who decided that this was a thing to do and why? I would like this pattern to meet sudden death.

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#317

Post by cheema33 »

hn_acker wrote: post #313
xelamonster wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah those video players are awful for anyone on mobile too, always ends up somehow getting stuck active and the only way to dismiss it is tap the video, which of course is usually bound to some other disruptive action like pausing or exiting full-screen mode.

Adding to your examples, I hate when video players (both mobile or desktop) don't let me hide the video player controls when the player is paused! I also dislike having to wait a few seconds upon starting/resuming a video for the controls to fade away.

> I hate when video players (both mobile or desktop) don't let me hide the video player controls when the player is paused!

Agreed. This is exceptionally annoying! Who thought this was a good idea? Why don't people copy proven video interface behavior from Google. Why go out of your way to annoy your users?

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#318

Post by hi-v-rocknroll »

Exactly. State transition should be expressed, managed, and kept synchronized with the control itself to indicate that the backend has recorded the change or not. Another consideration is how to handle disconnected operation: should a change attempt that cannot reach the API time out or retry indefinitely?

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#319

Post by iwishiknewlisp »

The save button on youtube mobile app is annoying. Clicking save shouldn't automatically add to watch later, with adjusting have to click the toast popup and set where you want it to save.

Its also hard to see the popup if you click the save button because your finger is blocking the bottom of the screen when you click.

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#320

Post by hi-v-rocknroll »

layer8 wrote: post #82

For me the worse aspect is that they disappear (too quickly), and that they sometimes unnecessarily draw attention to themselves for success messages where you would trivially assume the action to succeed. The combination of the two is particularly vexing: Your attention gets unnecessarily diverted, but you don’t know if it wasn’t actually important because it disappeared too fast. Conversely, there’s also a variatio…

Toasts that only appear for 500 ms are bad UX because the cognitive processing time of people varies widely, and they are incompatible with more people who have disabilities. Furthermore, they are hard to see on very large screens or when that corner is clipped on a desktop browser window that is partially off screen.
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