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Bring Back Idiomatic Design (2023)

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Re: Bring Back Idiomatic Design (2023)

#81
post #12

> 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…

Most of these I just say I am 200 years old or so.

Re: Bring Back Idiomatic Design (2023)

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is automatically formatted based on the user's locale.

This is still a partial solution as the user needs to know that their locale is being used and know how their locale is configured to understand the format. This is most problematic on shared computers or kiosks, especially when traveling.

I don't even know my locale.

Is is the device display language, the keyboard input language, my geo location, my browser language, my legal location, my browser-preferred website language, the language I set last time, the language of the domain (looking at amazon.co.uk), the language that was auto-selected last time for me on mobile or... something else entirely?

Re: Bring Back Idiomatic Design (2023)

#85
post #17
post #12

> 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.

Iso 8601![0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

Re: Bring Back Idiomatic Design (2023)

#86

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…

In Slack it can get even worse.

If you turn on Markdown formatting, shift+enter adds a new line, unless you’re in a multi-line code block started with three backticks, and then enter adds a new line and shift+enter sends the message.

I can see why someone thought this was a good idea, but it’s just not.

Re: Bring Back Idiomatic Design (2023)

#87
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most non-Linux users haven't made a fresh install in 5-10 years. Preferences files and apps get transferred when you buy a new computer or update your os.

I was pleased how much was passed over from my last phone. I got the same brand so it's not surprising, but wow it is so much better than The Good Old Days (tm).

I remember the old days being surprisingly smooth. There was some verizon tool that transferred all my contacts from the dumb phone to my first smart phone.

Re: Bring Back Idiomatic Design (2023)

#88
post #69

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…

Thats funny because I thought it was shift-enter that creates a newline in a field where an enter submits. Just shows the fractured nature of this whole thing.

This is my thinking. Ctrl-Enter is usually "submit the form this input is a part of" in my experience, especially if you're in a multilinear text input (or textarea).

Re: Bring Back Idiomatic Design (2023)

#89

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…

Apart from a chat interface, when should enter ever submit your text?

In a multiline text box, enter should NOT submit the form. Chat interfaces violate this rule and it results in lots of premature chat submissions.

Re: Bring Back Idiomatic Design (2023)

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author may have identified that "the idioms come from the use of system frameworks", but they absolutely got wrong just about everything about why apps are not consistent on the web (e.g. I was baffled by their reasons listed under "this lack of homogeneity is for two reasons" section). First, what he calls "the desktop era" wasn't so much a desktop era as a Windows era - Windows ran the vast majority of desktops…

> Developers weren't so much "following design idioms" as "doing what is easy to do on Windows". Most people only uses one computer. Inconsistency between platforms have no bearing on users. But inconsistency of applications on one platform is a nightmare for training. And accessibility suffers.

I don't disagree, but my point was about the author's incorrect diagnosis of the reason (and solution) for the problem, not that the problem doesn't exist.

As a sibling commenter put it, previously developers had "rails" that were governed by MS and Apple. The very nature of the web means no such rails exist, and saying "hey guys, let's all get back to design idioms!" is not going to fix the problem.

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