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Toasts are bad UX

maxschmitt.me

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Re: Toasts are bad UX

#91

Post by JohnFen »

iambateman wrote: post #6

Toasts are bad UX for an app which is used in a casual context, yes. The odds that an untrained user missed them and becomes confused are quite high. But there is nothing wrong with a toast in a pro app. The pro user will get used to where feedback comes from on the screen and find it is second nature to notice the toast. In practice, there are very few UX principles that generalize across every interface.

I actually think the opposite. Toasts in my professional tools are even more objectionable to me. They're never where I'm concentrating, and by the time I realize one is happening and look at it, it's either already gone or is saying something trivial.

The end result is usually that I've been distracted for no reason.

In a casual app, none of this matters as much.

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#92

Post by neolefty »

arcbyte wrote: post #80
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…

Have you worked with an old person? Redundancy in UX confuses them. The closer you can get to the whole UI being a single sentence and two buttons the better.

For sure — I've seen that struggle.

This discussion tells me we have not yet reached perfection in UI! Toasts are good for me, but definitely not good for the users you and others have described.

My hope is that small AIs inside UX can help here. Can you tell your UI framework something like, "Give them a choice between X and Y." and then "Clearly indicate they have chosen Y." (with a fallback of "Tell them something went wrong, and they won't be able to make a choice right now after all.")

Or is it simpler than that, and we don't micro-manage the AI-powered UI engine? "Get answers to these questions, and submit them to this API." — and UI engine does all the rest? I'm not sure.

Anyway, an improved UI would adapt to the user — think of the way a person providing a service adapts to the customer, intelligently and empathetically. For example a teacher watching for signs of understanding in a student, adjusting explanations. A car salesperson being quick and businesslike with one customer and listening patiently to another.

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#94

Post by authorfly »

If I am honest, the main reason I use toasts at first is because it ensures mobile compatibility. The problems with mobile UI (dismiss X offscreen, feedback off screen, user refreshed the SPA app page ruining state etc) are less likely to occur with a toast. They also bring some element of tolerable, expected animation (like 'page loader bars') which newbies often miss, and make the experience less jarring as a result.

Yes it's not great UX but it functions consistently well. Although 80% of the applications we use day-to-day may be by big corps with excellent UX and time to spend on it, 80% of applications built never get round to even consistent and fairly error-free UX. So I consider reaching that stage more important that adhering to a beautiful, but more risky, cross-platform UX strategy when in early stages with limited resources.

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#95

Post by soneca »

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…

> ” Redundancy in communication is a feature, not a bug”

I completely agree with you.

The article kind of confirmed to me that toasts are good UX.

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#96

Post by [deleted] »

sebtron wrote: post #76

For anyone as confused as I was, this article is not about toasted bread [1], but about a type of UI widget [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toast_(food) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Toast_(computing)

[deleted]

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#97

Post by JohnFen »

agumonkey wrote: post #78

Reminds me that old programs, be it Maya, Emacs, or even MFC days had a status bar for most simple notifications.

Status bars are a far superior option for this sort of thing than toasts. As another commenter said, toasts appear to be a UX compromise that was necessitated by mobile (where a status bar is tough), but has sadly infected desktops as well.

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#98

Post by l5870uoo9y »

In the examples shown, toasts are misused to display low-quality notifications, e.g. “x has been copied!”. Using toasts to display relevant error messages alleviates several problems:

- they work well in an otherwise cluttered user interface (error messages often break layouts)

- they allow the data layer to be substantially simplified, e.g. no need to store errors, error setters, error getters in Redux or similar

- they allow programmers to implement error handling toasts once and use everywhere

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#99

Post by baking »

sebtron wrote: post #76

For anyone as confused as I was, this article is not about toasted bread [1], but about a type of UI widget [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toast_(food) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Toast_(computing)

Should have been called "pop-tarts."

Re: Toasts are bad UX

#100

Post by cynicalpeace »

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…

I totally agree with you... this is why Java being so verbose is actually not terrible either, lmao come after me
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