371–380 of 385 posts
In text boxes in some applications, enter submits the entered text, and ctrl-enter forces a newline (not at my computer, but I think Slack does this). In others, it's the other way around (pretty sure GitHub does this for comments). I don't know how we got here and I don't know how to fix it, but "bring back idiomatic design" doesn't help when we don't have enough idioms. I'm not even sure if those two behaviors are…
We've lost some common features: * Undo & redo * Help files & context sensitive F1 * Hints on mouse hover * Keyboard shortcuts & shortcut customisation * Main menus * Files & directories * ESC to close/back * Drag n drop Revelation features when they first became common. Now mostly gone on mobile and websites.
Also having the cursor show up in the proper place on a new form and having tab order work.
Keyboard focus and focus indication on browsers is fundamentally broken.
We often notice when focus is buggy. But there are many many hidden/unobvious edge cases.
Previously I created a fix for the worst focusing issues on browsers by creating a fully custom framework (before modern HTML help with popovers/dialogs/overlays/viewports/anchors). No other framework at the time managed Internet Explorer's quirks very well (we served businesses who mostly used that browser).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It depends on the type of site/app you are building. If you are building a basic website (not a web application), or a simple application, you don't need React (or a similar framework like Vue or Angular). You might not even need Javascript at all. However, as you build more complex and interactive applications, you need "framework", like React. It's essential to simply handle the complexity of such applications. You…
I am not convinced that, when using a framework (React, etc), the best way to enforce consistent UI is via the framework. A button should be styled independent of the framework. That's how you will get consistency. Same with every other non-component element. The use of the component framework should be to consistently style non-primitive style elements (all the standard HTML elements). What value is there in using R…
Serious question: I have one response for fellow web dev, and another (that would be pedantically explanatory, and maybe even offense to a web dev) for a non-web dev.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s amazing how many blank stares I get when I, as mobile engineer, tell stakeholders that we shouldn’t just implement some random interface idea they thought up in the shower and we instead need design input! “But why can’t you just do it?” Because I recognise the importance of consistent UX and an IA that can actually be followed. Just like developers, (proper) designers solve problems, an we need to stop asking t…
Too many people think being good at designing a UI primarily means knowing where to put something on a page.
> Prefer words to icons. Use only icons that are universally understood. Underrated. Except for dyslexic people, and the most obvious icon forms, I am pretty sure most people are just better and faster at recognising single words at a glance than icons.
I'm somewhat dubious about that for icons with actual recognizable pictures, but a lot of icon attempts today are stylized to death, with just a line, bent and broken in a couple places and maybe if you're lucky juxtaposed with the occasional dot. If there's no text description even on mouseover (or touchscreen, with no cursor...) discovery is more or less trial and error (or perhaps more akin to Russian Roulette if…
> Prefer words to icons. Use only icons that are universally understood. Underrated. Except for dyslexic people, and the most obvious icon forms, I am pretty sure most people are just better and faster at recognising single words at a glance than icons.
I am pretty sure icons are easier and faster to recognize, except when you make them (too) small. In particular, they probably are easier in the long run, as long as they don't change position. But in a context where things change or you need a lot of buttons, words probably win.
I’m not sure the core thesis is correct for two reasons. I’ve been around the block a few times now and I don’t think I’ve ever lived in an era where people were like “the current state of design is awesome”. There are always rose-tinted think pieces with some dubious stats about how things are awesome in the past. Secondly, idiomatic is good if it matches your mental model. However, what does idiomatic mean in the c…
The solution to this kind of problem is standards. For most of the history of computation, things were moving too fast for anyone to really worry about standardization. Computing environments were also somewhat Balkanized. Standard keyboard shortcuts, for just one example, weren't. They still aren't. e.g. If you fingers are accustomed to hitting Ctrl-C to copy on most computers, they'll hit Fn-C on a Apple keyboard,…
Isn't the Macintosh desktop (with Cmd as the modifier for standard shortcuts) older than Windows and Linux desktops? So historically, it's not Apple that deviated but the others? (I did not do an extensive search into this, so there might be Ctrl-based standard shortcuts that predate Apple.)
> There are hundreds of ways that different websites ask you to pick dates Ugh, date pickers. So many of these violently throw up when I try to do the obvious thing: type in the damn date. Instead they force me to click through their inane menu, as if the designer wanted to force me into a showcase of their work. Let your power users type. Just call your user’s attention back to the field if they accidentally typed 0…
Is 03/04/2026 March 4th or the 3rd of April? If you have an international audience that’s going to mess someone up. Better yet require YYYY-MM-DD.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am pretty sure icons are easier and faster to recognize, except when you make them (too) small. In particular, they probably are easier in the long run, as long as they don't change position. But in a context where things change or you need a lot of buttons, words probably win.
This is not true. Just today for example, in android at least, I went to whatsapp, selected a chat with long tap, I want to archive the chat. I have a download like button. Apparently that is the archive button. I had no idea. If it was the opening to the alternate dimension, I wouldn't still know. If it was something harmful like backup and delete, I wouldnt know. I just took the plunge and hoped it wasn't gonna be…
And in this case, the statement was about recognition, not intuition. Otherwise there are counter arguments: there are enough words in UIs which do not have an intuitive meaning either. "New" would be one. New what? File and folder are others, especially with decreasing awareness of the file system under young generations.
I'd say that you recognized the button fast enough, but the wrong function was attached to it. It's as if they would have had a menu item called "Download" which would archive.
> Now imagine my parents who are 60+!!
I can, because I am too.