Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

lukew.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 241 posts

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#91

Post by vidarh »

err4nt wrote: post #80
cbaleanu wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not. Disabling default zoom behavior is like hijacking the scroll bar - bad, ugly and puts users off. Also horrible is the tri state or undeterminate checkbox. All of the above are very trendy pieces of 'css and html codes' commonly found on popular DIY web dev sites. *edit: spelling

I do a lot of responsive design, and I turn zooming off So I CAN give you a proper responsive design that you can read and interact with on a small touchscreen. Why on earth would you prefer to pan around a desktop site designed for a big screen with a tiny cursor when you've got a tiny screen and a massive cursor (fingertip)?

If I try to zoom, it is already a demonstration that your design does not work for me on my device.

I would not prefer to pan - if I resort to it, it's because I have to because the site design is broken.

At that point you better not have disabled zoom too, if you want me to come back to your site.

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#92

Post by smpetrey »

anc84 wrote: post #76

If you want to see the images in actual 1:1 resolution, here is how: * Click on the image in the text. * Click on the image in the tweet. * Right-click on the image in the pop-up. * Open image in new tab. * Change the "large" at the end of the URL to "orig". Load that URL. Congrats, you now see a huge (blurry upscaled) image that you can actually read. You are out 3 times the network traffic that was needed. Why woul…

my guess is he is mining for twitter interactions. not justifiable IMO, but a reason nonetheless

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#93

Post by vidarh »

coldtea wrote: post #38
threefour wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On iOS I could three steps: 1. tap dropdown to select 2. scroll list 3. tap 'Done' But with any list of significant length (the reason you would use a dropdown in the first place) you'll probably need a few actions to scroll to the right item.

On the other hand, any list of "significant length" is best served by a dropdown. None of the options he shows in the article works well there.

A list of significant length is often best served by search.

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#94

Post by akurilin »

On that note, is there a really basic caveman-friendly resource out there for UX-illiterate developers like me to help us make decent user experience decisions? A best practices text, or a guide for how to avoid the most obvious usability mishaps?

I've had to "teach" myself most of this stuff by looking at other people's UX, but my results are still "meh" at best. Help! :)

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#95

Post by softawre »

auganov wrote: post #78
aembleton wrote: post #3

This is the case for mobile phones. On a desktop or laptop, the dropdowns are preferable because most browsers will let you select the day, month year using your keyboard.

Yes. And please - if you feel like reinventing the dropdown be decent enough to re-implement that feature. Example of an offender: https://www.google.com/advanced_search

Yikes. What's funny is the article writer is a product director at Google.

Fix this Luke!

http://www.lukew.com/about/

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#96

Post by cjsaylor »

justuk wrote: post #59

I dislike the way mobile has become the new lowest common denominator for web development. It used to be IE6 because it was antiquated but now it's anything with a touch screen - mainly thinking how hover has been relegated to visual effects even though it's fine on non-touchscreens.

It's not about lowest common denominator. It's about what devices users are actually using to browse your site. If you make an awesome desktop version of the site at the expense of mobile, but majority are visiting on a small device, then you are alienating the majority. You have to keep perspective of why your are building something; if it is not for the users, then it is pointless.

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#97

Post by anc84 »

leftnode wrote: post #89
anc84 wrote: post #76

If you want to see the images in actual 1:1 resolution, here is how: * Click on the image in the text. * Click on the image in the tweet. * Right-click on the image in the pop-up. * Open image in new tab. * Change the "large" at the end of the URL to "orig". Load that URL. Congrats, you now see a huge (blurry upscaled) image that you can actually read. You are out 3 times the network traffic that was needed. Why woul…

While I completely agree with you - it's an ridiculous choice - you can just right click and click "Open Image in New Tab" in Chrome. Which ironically is located on the authors own domain.

Nice! I "gave up and tried something the author did not intend" only when I ended up with Twitter's tiny images.

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#98

Post by dabernathy89 »

I won't say you should never use switches... but so many people do them poorly. I come across so many examples of switches where it's impossible to tell which position is "on" or "off". In many cases checkboxes should be preferred. Heck, you could even put a little "check" on the switch if you want to.

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#99

Post by GFischer »

softawre wrote: post #95
auganov wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And please - if you feel like reinventing the dropdown be decent enough to re-implement that feature. Example of an offender: https://www.google.com/advanced_search

Yikes. What's funny is the article writer is a product director at Google. Fix this Luke! http://www.lukew.com/about/

To be fair, that page predates Luke's stint at Google by a long time (I don't know how long has it been since it last received an update, many of Google's features are sadly neglected).

Re: Dropdowns Should Be the UI of Last Resort

#100

Post by kraig911 »

So I do UI dev lately in liferay (I've done a lot of UX though too) and trying to accomplish what is so easily stated by Luke in say Alloy/Spring from a back end developer who doesn't have the 'resources' to incorporate fuzzy search et al I feel all this rage. But then there's nothing I can do about it :(. Sucks having to bill hourly and not be able to bill the time to a client for 'nice-ities' such as this advise. Clients just don't see the benefit.
Post reply on HN