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Where is the data? This article, like everything I’ve ever seen on UX Movement, makes all sorts of claims without any sign of conducting usability research to a

Where is the data? This article, like everything I’ve ever seen on UX Movement, makes all sorts of claims without any sign of conducting usability research to actually support their claims. In this article, the examples are artificially constructed to support their claims in a dishonest manner. For example, they talk about how “floating label” text is smaller than the “IFTA label” text even though there is no reason they couldn’t be the same size (and, of course, the text is larger and more visible in the floating label’s initial state). The same thing is true of the “crammed spacing” claim, there is nothing inherent to the floating label that reduces spacing. Finally, the article suggests that “IFTA label” is better by using colour to differentiate between complete and incomplete fields. This manages to ignore well-established research showing users with achromatopsia and low vision won’t be able to differentiate between those states at all since the contrast difference is only 1.25:1! At least unfilled fields with floating labels have no label at all above the field—which is not a great UI clue either, but is at least one that is legible for everybody. (In any case, unfilled fields should always be discoverable by form validation at submission time pointing out which fields are invalid and why.)

mgsk 7y ago
The article claims that not having the label inside the field allows users to spot fields that have yet to be filled-in. In the next section the article claims that by moving the label out of the field leaves room for helpful hint-type text within the field. My eyes almost rolled out of their sockets reading this article.
dojosensei 7y ago
1. No data, based on work experience and principles. Needing data to evaluate a solid argument backed by specific reasoning is an appeal to authority bias. 2. It's not dishonest as floating labels typically are designed a certain way — with tiny text labels and crammed spacing. This is the standard for how they're designed. Can you make it bigger and give it more spacing? Yes, you can go out of your way to do that but most typically don't because of the way floating labels are designed — the label is center-aligned in the field from the start and then it shrinks and floats to the top because it's not thought of as important anymore. This is standard behavior for floating labels. To suggest, "oh, you can just make it bigger then and put more spacing" shows you don't understand how floating labels typically work. 3. You ignore the fact of how many normal-visioned users the color label differentiation would help, which is a lot since they make up the majority on most apps. Your complaint on accessibility doesn't really stand since it can be resolved by making the label color a higher contrast and greater luminance for disabled users. Many users want to check their fields before they press the submit button and get errors. The label differentiation makes it easier for them to spot incomplete fields. These are great things for the user.

mgsk 7y ago

The article claims that not having the label inside the field allows users to spot fields that have yet to be filled-in. In the next section the article claims that by moving the label out of the field leaves room for helpful hint-type text within the field. My eyes almost rolled out of their sockets reading this article.

dojosensei 7y ago

1. No data, based on work experience and principles. Needing data to evaluate a solid argument backed by specific reasoning is an appeal to authority bias. 2. It's not dishonest as floating labels typically are designed a certain way — with tiny text labels and crammed spacing. This is the standard for how they're designed. Can you make it bigger and give it more spacing? Yes, you can go out of your way to do that but most typically don't because of the way floating labels are designed — the label is center-aligned in the field from the start and then it shrinks and floats to the top because it's not thought of as important anymore. This is standard behavior for floating labels. To suggest, "oh, you can just make it bigger then and put more spacing" shows you don't understand how floating labels typically work. 3. You ignore the fact of how many normal-visioned users the color label differentiation would help, which is a lot since they make up the majority on most apps. Your complaint on accessibility doesn't really stand since it can be resolved by making the label color a higher contrast and greater luminance for disabled users. Many users want to check their fields before they press the submit button and get errors. The label differentiation makes it easier for them to spot incomplete fields. These are great things for the user.