The second example can be rewritten as such: inputWidget = let changeAction = do v <- onChange return (Changed (unsafeTargetVal

The second example can be rewritten as such: inputWidget = let changeAction = do v <- onChange return (Changed (unsafeTargetValue v)) focusAction = do _ <- onFocus return Focused in input [changeAction, focusAction] and likewise for the third: inputWidget st = let focusAction = do _ <- onFocus return (st {focusCount = st.focusCount+1}) changeAction = do v <- onChange return (st {s = unsafeTargetValue v}) in input [focusAction, changeAction] (I didn't compile this, so hopefully there's no major mistakes here) Believe it or not, many Haskell programmers prefer brevity when it comes to programs like this. They're honestly not that unreadable once you learn the meaning of a few infix operators.