12 ms·

We use too many damn modals (2018)

252 points by juancampa 6y ago

systemvoltage 6y ago
I agree about modals. But seems like the same points can be made about the website's design that trying to teach others about modals, have you considered using plain text or a more readable website to convey your point across without resorting to 1-bit retro decoration? Edit: 1 bit lol
- jmull 6y ago
  1-bit actually. (But, yes, it’s pretty awful and makes it hard to take the content seriously even though it’s good content.)
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    I found it entertaining. I would completely ignore this as a generic rant without the stylized presentation.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- joombaga 6y ago
  Yeah I had a hard time reading it without getting distracted. So I went to a website that converts pages to plain-text and the first thing that popped up was a newsletter modal. So I guess point taken.
- tasty_freeze 6y ago
  If my obese doctor tells me I need to lose weight, I have two choices. Either I can weigh his advice, or I can ignore him and cluck that his comment is really rich considering he is overweight himself. I think the first option is helpful; the second option is boringly obvious and not helpful. As for the style, I found it to be entertaining and helped make a possibly dry topic seem a little less like a lecture and more like friendly advice.
  - systemvoltage 6y ago
    That's a bad analogy. The reason why you trust your obese doctor for weight loss advice is not because their body shape, but because of the credentials (Doctor). Replace a doctor with a random stranger (which is what this website is, I don't know the person giving advice about the modals) on the street who is obese and tries to tell you with authoritative voice - "Hey! Listen, you're fat and this is how to lose weight!". That's more accurate. I can agree with you about the entertainment value, I personally don't see it but if someone is entertained by it, good.
    - the_other 6y ago
      The depth and clarity of the advice and the effort put into presenting it work as solid credentials in this case. The author is clearly a “doctor” of design. Look how well those those graphics get their message across, whilst also matching the style of the text. That takes a real steady hand (both literately and figuratively).
- post_below 6y ago
  I don't love retro design either but that seems irrelevant. To anyone who's familiar with the topic it's immediately clear from the copy that the author understands it. Considering that the target audience is other designers, why does the presentation matter?
  - systemvoltage 6y ago
    I think it kills the credibility of the designer trying to tell others, authoritatively mind you, that modals are bad while A) I have no idea who this person is or know their credentials B) Why should I listen to them if they're presenting it without a good understanding of design which is what they're trying to preach others? IMO it totally kills it. Others may not have as strong of an opinion. This is the age old question about separating art from the artist. With authoritative didactics, especially as a stranger on the internet, it is even more important to associate art with the artist so to speak. It comes with responsibility.
  - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
    > Considering that the target audience is other designers, why does the presentation matter I fail to see the logic here. Good design helps people learn easier. It's not like designers have some unique ability to learn equally well no matter how poor the design is.
    - post_below 6y ago
      Well context... the information the author is presenting is simple, right brain stuff. No one with UI experience is going to have a hard time digesting it. It's not like he used gifs or flashing colors. Now I kinda want gifs and flashing colors.
      - gindely 6y ago
        That isn't actually true. I think I have UI experience, but I would actually have preferred some mockup examples instead of 1 bit bmp pseudo-thumbnails to represent his ideas. Surely it would be better to show some good user interfaces.
x32n23nr 6y ago
Modals are basically the fancy clone of old school javascript's alert(), and while everyone would rightfully be annoyed being "alerted" needlessly, designers have convinced themselves that it's fine to show modals frequently? Edit: Claiming it's only designers' fault, or generalizing that all designers do that, is obviously wrong. I did not mean that. What I meant to convey (partially failed) is that examples propagate, and somehow design choices are the beginning of this propagation chain.
- pvg 6y ago
  Modal dialogs are a lot older than alert(). alert() is an instance of a modal dialog, not the other way round.
  - seventh-chord 6y ago
    My impression from seeing old windows version (never having used anything older than vista) was that in general using an extra window instead of a separate pane inside the window was more common. As far as I can tell, the old windows explorer would pop open a new window for each opened folder. Now it seems like most programs are run in half/full-screen; They arent really treated as windows. IDEs have their own window-layout system anyways, right? (Modal) dialogs are probably more at place in a world where windows is more that just the name of the os.
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      There were modals in Ashton-Tate's Framework back in 1984. I think even GEOS had them.
    - pvg 6y ago
      What I was getting at is that the important thing is the concept (which is about as old as GUIs), the other stuff is implementation detail. The 'modal' part of the a modal dialog is that it takes you out of the 'modeless' interaction state where you can take one of the many UI actions available to you to a state (mode!) where you can do very few things and nothing else. Making GUIs less modal is a similarly ancient UI design holy grail. Applications are modes hence everything from OpenDoc to the just-announced App Clips. A familiar clunky modern mode is 'native' apps vs 'apps' in browsers - a big chunk of technologies many programmers work with today are directly or indirectly related to mitigating its effects.
ameyv 6y ago
I don't want to complain, website is harder to read with all that 8 bitsh font type...Maybe normal post with one example for each idea would be good enough.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
  The irony of a website with a deliberately terrible and gimmicky UI complaining about a functional UI model that has worked for decades.
  - justanotherc 6y ago
    That's kind of what I thought too. Our app is very Modal heavy (including modal inception), but I can't think of any case where the suggested alternatives would actually be better. And that's backed up by the fact that our users regularly tell us how easy and awesome it is to navigate through it.
    - winrid 6y ago
      It's one of those things that when you prototype a design without them you really feel the difference.
  - jevgeni 6y ago
    “Worked” isn’t exactly right. “Was popular” is better imo.
- runarberg 6y ago
  Granted the authors could have tried to get the website to work in reader mode (they might be missing an `<article>` tag or some `<meta>` tags). But in the meantime, it works well in lynx ;)
datavirtue 6y ago
That's why I love mobile...and the people found a way to create modals there. Sigh.
aylmao 6y ago
I remember reading somewhere that most (modal) dialogs are just lazy design. It's easier to have a dialog component and throw whatever notice or controls in there. It's a predictable and flexible canvas. Your password is incorrect? Error dialog. Easier to design and build that a warning state on the text-boxes and a message close to the login button. Writing a post? Editor dialog. It's easier to design and build than something that's inline, grows to accommodate what you're writing, and works predictably when you scroll away or click something else. There's something the user should know? Alert dialog. Much easier than figuring out where in the component hierarchy you should inject a warning, how it should look, what controls you should disable, etc.
- d0m 6y ago
  I used to have the opinion that modals were bad, but now I think there's a good middle-ground where a lack of modal sometimes generates implicit states with many edge-cases that makes the UX more complex.
- elcomet 6y ago
  Maybe it's lazy but the important question should be: is it good design? I don't think it is, as it hides some information from the main page. But I think it can be done well and be useful, as said at the end of the article. After all, OS use a lot of modals.
  - grumple 6y ago
    The more important question: do the people paying you care if it’s good design? Because the people who have paid me thus far in my career have not cared.
    - tonyarkles 6y ago
      What about the people who have not paid you?
      - jl6 6y ago
w_for_wumbo 6y ago
My biggest issue with modals, is that they never seem to be tested with mobile devices in mind. So when I'm on my phone, the ability to close it is often off the screen. The only choice is to leave the website at that point.
- labster 6y ago
  I often find the pattern on websites that I visit the site for the first time due to a link, read maybe half a paragraph, and then get a modal popup asking for my email address to subscribe. I've never read any content from them before, how would I know if I want to subscribe? My phone is also in landscape mode, so the modal's close button is off the screen, and I can't scroll to it cause it's an absolutely positioned modal. So the only logical thing to do is avoid the site in the future, they're more interested in extracting money from their existing readers than getting new readers. Sorry, maybe if you had let me read one article I may have liked your content.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  My biggest issue with modals, is that they never seem to be tested with mobile devices in mind I feel your pain. The web sites I maintain have at least 70% mobile users. But the managers (and designers!) only see them on giant-screen desktops, and only care what it looks like in-house, not to the customers. I'm tired of constantly telling layers of bosses that what they want won't work on mobile, which is where their customers are.
rightnow 6y ago
I use full screen modals for my new project. A list of items. U click one and the item appears in a full screen modal. U close and you're at the same place you started.users love it and i dont see a problem with it.
nameoda 6y ago
The list of reasons why modals are bad are all very subjective. A little more explanation would have helped make the case that modals are bad. Not to mention that what should be a list is displayed as a table (－‸ლ)
- diegof79 6y ago
  I agree, the site visuals and short messages doesn’t explain well why they are bad. I’ll try to fill that gap. Modals switch the application normal mode to get your attention. So they interrupt your “flow”. Most of the reasons to use them could be resolved by other means, that are better in terms of UX but requires more work in both design and implementation: - Confirmation modals can be substituted with auto-save, undo, and restore, but is more complex to implement. - Modals to show more info can be resolved with progressive disclosure or by improving the information architecture. However, like with many design choices there are cases where modals are a good option. For example, for certain confirmations and navigation the advantage of the modal is that the backdrop makes clear where do you go after dismissing the modal (bottom sheets in mobile are a example). Another reason why modals get a bad rep is that they have all sorts of implementation issues in web, and in the desktop the mode change for a window is not prominent (macOS solves that with sheets, but Windows still has that problem)
  - Enginerrrd 6y ago
    They also break zoom and other features some people rely on a lot.
quickthrower2 6y ago
In what context? If you design a desktop application, like say Word then modals are more appropriate than the alternatives in many situations. For a site like Medium, a modal is an annoyance. If I asked for something (click Settings) then I am happier with my modal than if I didn't ask (we're going to stuff cookies on your page anyway, here is our arse coverer). The underlying message I take is we "use too many things that make it easier for the coder and harder for the user". Sometimes that's a modal, but sometimes that's NOT using a modal!
renewiltord 6y ago
Very easy to use a modal if I’m editing other parts of UI.
l0b0 6y ago
There's a very simple rule of thumb: must the user give some feedback before it makes any sense to use the rest of the site? If so, it's fine to use a modal. Otherwise, don't. Some examples: Payment page: not a modal. The user might want to add more stuff to the cart, even when they are literally one click away from purchasing. Blanking out the rest of the page means they now have to work around the site to buy more stuff. Error message: not a modal. The user is vanishingly unlikely to report an error immediately (obviously it's logged in any case), and probably just wants to try again with slightly different input. Irreversible action confirmation: not a modal. For the same reason as the payment page, the user might want to do something else before retrying the irreversible action. Just display a prominent message so the user knows the action is not yet done. Or, if at all possible, implement undo instead. My job depends on it: OK, use a modal. We forgive you.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
recursivedoubts 6y ago
Let me see if I can articulate this well: The problem problem with modals in a web page context is that they go against the statelessness of the html request/response model. They end up building up a lot of local state in the client, both model state as well as UI state, that eventually need to be reconciled with the server. If the user closes the modal, is the data saved for later? Does the form reset? Does the server know anything about it? If it is a wizard, were previous steps saved? And so on. After many years of working on and with intercoolerjs/htmx, I now typically prefer inline editing and wizards, to a modal solutions. It fits better with the web model, allows for proper URLs, etc. The inline-edit demo from htmx is a good example of something that might be implemented as a modal by some developers, but works very well as an inline-edit UI instead: https://htmx.org/examples/click-to-edit/ https://htmx.org/examples/click-to-edit/ (NB: I was lazy and did not make the URL update as I should have)
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  I’ll try to condense it more. If you play a video game and a modal pops up, it takes you out of the experience. It’s the same as (hypothetically) me having to go into my HN profile to find a list of comments I upvoted to then go ahead and downvote (versus just having the downvote button next to the post). Can’t teach this stuff, you basically need to be confronted by tons of bad UI in software, games, physical printed forms, processes, until you get a good sense of taste. I can’t teach HN devs that my thumb covers both the upvote and downvote button on mobile. Can’t teach it.
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    "Modal" isn't precise enough, then. Imagine you're playing a game and you click "Options" and a modal window pops up with the options you can tweak. Or an endless image gallery where clicking an image enlarges it inside a modal that you can dismiss to resume scrolling without losing your place. It didn't wrongfully force you out of experience, it's what you wanted. Seems like we're talking about getting in the way of users where crappy modals are just one way of doing that. Navigating to a new page seems even more jarring in TFA examples.
  - 6y ago
grishka 6y ago
The one UX anti-pattern that needs to die for sure is what this site calls "self-spawning modals". They're not only on websites — iOS is very annoying with them for example.
bedatadriven 6y ago
I was just about to share this our designer, who is always talking me down from modals, when I reached the bottom and discovered that our designer is in fact the author. I seriously can't say enough for this message. Adrian helped us redesign our app 2 years ago, dispatching many many modals in the process, and delivering a huge increase in usability that our customers and users very much do care about.
- prox 6y ago
  I implore everyone to read the fundamental book : about face This book argues about a lot of UI topics, and with a lot of detail. It’s the bible of UI design imo.
  - mrgreenfur 6y ago
    What's the book title? "About Face"?
    - prox 6y ago
      https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/289062.About_Face_3 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/289062.About_Face_3 This is a link, you can also search “about face interaction design”
slezyr 6y ago
The website is readable only at 30% zoom(couldn't zoom out even more) on the 4k 27" display also it messed up mine scroll wheel in some way, broke mouse cursor.
triyambakam 6y ago
Is this website considered "brutalist"?
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  In the web sense of "true to web form" brutalist? Not really, for instance the tables are not made to look like TABLEs and are in fact ULs and such. This design aesthetic might better be described as "(Mac) Classical". (Brutalist isn't only about minimalism.)
seph-reed 6y ago
Modals are a good way to show complex content without throwing away your current render. Whatever you were doing before the modal came up, you can go straight back to that. No re-draws, no scrolling back to the place you were at. Ofc we've all seen them done terribly.
saagarjha 6y ago
One thing I like to do is preview a link by Force clicking on it in my browser and scrolling through it–the preview window lets me scroll, but not interact with the page. For many sites this is quite convenient, because I can skim the page without being interrupted. But when modals pop up they cover the content and I can't read the page because I can't dismiss them! So if you're looking for another reason to drop modals, here's one. Also, hilariously this website uncovers a bug in Safari where the cursor doesn't reset once you leave the page bounds, so I have a huge pixellated cursor hanging around until I click somewhere else :P
- gindely 6y ago
  What does that mean? Force clicking? You apply so much pressue that it breaks a touchscreen/touchpad so that it makes a click noise when you tap?
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    In case that wasn’t a joke: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204352 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204352
    - gindely 6y ago
      Oh, another of Apple's hidden features. Once upon a time, one button mice were a feature so that features weren't hidden and even beginner users could quickly become power users.
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        This used to be three-finger tap on older Macs.
justanotherc 6y ago
Modals are good for when you need to show a new blocking state without losing the current state. There are many valid reasons for that scenario. Even for modal inception. Use them for that purpose, no need to swear them off completely.
qntmfred 6y ago
I've been preaching against modals and carousels for years. I'm a big fan of http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/ http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/ and while I had long ago intended to create with a similarly implemented site that demonstrates the pitfalls of modals with a series of modals, this site does a pretty good job of highlighting the main issues and alternatives too
- klyrs 6y ago
  Wow, that's almost useable when you don't have to wait for a new ad to load with every click...
ozaark 6y ago
The key design principle overlooked here is Progressive Disclosure[1], which modals and dialogs can be very good at delivering. Progressive disclosure retains user focus on a single task as opposed to showing everything at once. Accordions have similar function to modals and dialogs but adding further task controls to an already complex interface isn't always the best solution. The author goes on to state that even full screen modals are bad, but what difference does the user see? If done well the user should still be able to use the browser back button, escape key, etc to navigate out. In modern applications, pages can transition from one to the next without a "full page load" -is that also bad for some reason? Think of many popular mobile apps like Instacart, Doordash, etc that allow a user to dive into categories that slide on top of the existing content to give further controls; is that not ok? Every element in the DOM can be applied inappropriately but that doesn't shift the blame to the elements themselves. One could argue an entire dedicated site that only uses modals based on the misuse of illegible fonts would be about as apropros. [1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/progressive-disclosure/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/progressive-disclosure/
- andreareina 6y ago
  TFA is not saying all modals are bad, just most. Progressive disclosure is a fine thing, but that doesn't have to mean modals. Most of the time a discreet notification that doesn't interrupt the user's flow is what's appropriate; I think Tidal does a good job here, by highlighting one feature per screen, and if I don't tap on it to see what it is I'm able to go about my way. Since we're quoting NNGroup, here's their guidance on modals[1] (emphasis mine): 1) Important warnings 2) Critical to continuing the current process Most modals are unasked for, not relevant to the user's current needs (no matter what the dev/marketing might think), and unwanted. Modal to select filter settings when I've clicked/tapped the 'filter' button? That's a good use. [1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/modal-nonmodal-dialog/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/modal-nonmodal-dialog/
  - ozaark 6y ago
    TFA literally says don't use full screen modals, ever. I disagreed with examples of that not being necessarily relevant with the way today's applications can work. Important from the NNGroup article you linked even demonstrates great modal usage and states "3. Modal dialogs can be used to fragment a complex workflow into simpler steps." and "4. Use modal dialogs to ask for information that, when provided, could significantly lessen users’ work or effort." That's important - modals are not just intrusive pop-ups as many designers and others in this thread have decided that they are. Again, every element can be used inappropriately but that doesn't mean the elements are to blame.
Areading314 6y ago
The reason modals are so popular is because they work really well when trying to convert views to signups.
jaequery 6y ago
I must be in the minority as I love modals.
supernova87a 6y ago
My main gripe with modal windows is the name. The first couple times some developer told me that's what she was using, I waited for her to explain what modal meant. But she did not, as if it was standard self-explanatory terminology. Way to name something a word that sounds like it has a standard (even deeper) meaning, but does not. With time, I have just accepted that this is what modal means (I'm going to create a window of this type to display the data/filters), disconnected from any meaning of the term "mode". But I still don't like it.
- Izkata 6y ago
  AFAIK, it is based on the word "mode", because what's supposed to happen is the rest of the page is disabled while you deal with the modal. You've switched modes from "normal usage" to "the popup". If you can still interact with some other part of the page while it's open, it's not a modal, it's just a popup.
- waheoo 6y ago
  Just because you cant see the connection doesnt mean its not there. Adjective, (of a proposition) in which the predicate is affirmed of the subject with some qualification, or which involves the affirmation of possibility, impossibility, necessity, or contingency. Its pretty plain to see how a confirm or error message is applied to that definition no?
  - supernova87a 6y ago
    Not really. It's a stretch (at least for me) to see the connection between a window that shows you some data, or a toggle, or some arbitrary information and the idea that the window should be called "modal" as if it controls some "mode".
    - waheoo 6y ago
      Youre misunderstanding that definitions position if you think it has something to do with modes. > in which the predicate is affirmed of the subject with some qualification, E.g. an error with an error message Or > or which involves the affirmation of possibility, impossibility, necessity, or contingency. E.g. an are you sure? dialog preceeding a save.
Kagerjay 6y ago
the worst thing is doing a modal that calls a modal, that's the worst offender of them all
6510 6y ago
also see: popups
jerry40 6y ago
Oh I thought the subject is about the modal verbs
farouqaldori 6y ago
The awful readability of that website must be satire, right?
627467 6y ago
Modals can be a lazy (and worst, wrong) solution. But I've found that pavlovian bashing of modals is as lazy and unproductive. > And remember to always ask, kids: >“Why does this have to be a modal?” In my experience people don't need to be remembered to ask this. And generally people can't justify why it shouldn't be a modal or why a non-modal solution is better than a modal one.
Kaze404 6y ago
This is only tangentially related, but one thing I'm absolutely sick of is rounded corners. I don't know why, and I don't know if it makes any sense, but opening a page and seeing literally everything with border-radius makes my blood boil. It feels like they're trying to protect me from sharp corners, as if they're dangerous. Come on, we're all adults here. We can take a few 90 degree angles.
- duncan-donuts 6y ago
  The new GitHub UI is too damn round. Everything is rounded. I’m all for changing a UI to make it better. GitHub needed to change some things around because it is cluttered with features and hard to navigate at times. But rounded corners everywhere is all I see.
- gindely 6y ago
  > Come on, we're all adults here. We can take a few 90 degree angles. I know that 90 degree angles on webpages are not more dangerous for children, parents, adults, or any other known subcategory of humans than for any other known subcategory of humans, but ... lots of people who use webpages and dev tools are actually children. Didn't a lot of us get started as kids? Have we collectively forgotten the olden days, when to print something, the solution was to ask the neighbor's next door kid? (who was probably you). Printers aren't any easier to use today than they were back then, but I guess that practice is over nowadays.
  - Kaze404 6y ago
    Fair enough, but some of the worst offenders of this aren't really targeted at children or something they'd be interested in. The new Github UI (which I adore, besides this particular issue) is a really bad offender for example. If you go to your profile page, there's not a single not-round border. The exception are the little squares showing activity, which makes it even worse because in the caption underneath they are rounded. What happened there?
- hpen 6y ago
  This just feels really picky to me. I mean it's a rounded corner for Christ sake.
js8 6y ago
Typing this from Ubuntu, Gnome 3 I think, in Firefox, I press Ctrl-S to save the page, and I get a modal dialog, which cannot be even moved. Sometimes, it actually obscures something that I cannot read on the screen. If you have to use a modal element at least allow me to get it out of the way so that I can read the text under it!
- yencabulator 6y ago
  Every time this happens in any environment, the information I need for deciding the filename is below the modal.
tbirdny 6y ago
I'm reminded of a quote in Inside Macintosh Volume 1: "But, gentlemen, you overdo the mode." From John Dryden, The Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery, 1972. That quote really stuck in my head.
discordance 6y ago
I've been using Azure a lot, and they use blades (essentially horizontal accordions) instead of modals. I was playing with Alibaba Cloud's UI and it's all modals and feels much much nicer to use. I wouldn't use Ali Cloud due to Chinese ownership issues, but I do like their UX.
winrid 6y ago
I hate modals - I'll never add them to products I build. Edit: To provide a little more substance here - for example in one product of mine that actually has customers - confirmation is done via inline elements that slide into the page. So you want delete a comment for example. The delete/cancel buttons slide into the box for that comment. No weird context switch for your eyes.
- gindely 6y ago
  Since you deny a weird context switch for your eyes, are these actually inline elements? That would imply the size of the containers is changing. Which would surely be a weird context switch. But at least I can have no doubt what my action is about to affect - I get frustrated on sites when it says "you're about to delete these items" and i have no idea whether it agrees with me about which items I'm about to delete or not. But if they're overlaid elements, like a context sensitive menu that contains two options - delete, cancel - is there any substantive difference between a menu and a modal? The main advantage of a classic menu over a modal seems to be that it has a implicit cancel option that is uniformally implemented. But nowadays, menus are implemented without toolkit support - yay dom, yay - so even that is not consistent.
  - winrid 6y ago
    This is what I mean: http://imgur.com/a/hY9eM77 http://imgur.com/a/hY9eM77 Content size doesn't change in my case and I would highly advise against changing the sizing of elements on the page for something like this. The buttons are sized vertical based on the content up to a limit.
    - gindely 6y ago
      Yep okay, so I guess that's not inline by my definition (since it overlays the text). I have definitely seen webpages that change the size of the containing box to add in the confirmation message and buttons. I guess it's an between case I didn't consider - it's maybe not modal with respect to the whole app, but it seems to be modal with respect to that one comment (you can ignore it and do something else with the rest of the program, but with that comment, you can't even read it).
jevgeni 6y ago
I have a rule: if I get an unnecessary modal, I leave.
davedx 6y ago
Hah! I often have the experience that indeed a modal should actually have been a new page, but I was too lazy to build the thing so I went with the modal. Then later the modal needs more options or fields, and I end up having to convert it to a new page anyway... lesson mostly learned now. Agree with the article.
imtringued 6y ago
Eclipse uses modals in the worst possible way. Usually you want to copy the name of a type or variable into a modal but you are already into two layers of modals. You will have to close all of them and lose progress. Using more than one layer of modals is always bad design.
pablosca 6y ago
Love this a lot! The author is right on most (well, all) of the statements.
ascotan 6y ago
Back when js frameworks became a thing, modals were a shiny ball that everyone wanted to put into their app (because they came with the framework). Designers that worked with these modals became poisoned to the fact that this is how a UI should look. Like an old hairstyle they're now thankfully going out of fashion.
mlonkibjuyhv 6y ago
There are so many bad modals in mainstream desktop software. Is there any good reason that an open file dialog completely disables all other interaction? What if I quickly have to task switch, or a piece of info relating to which file i wanna open is just off screen? A personal favourite is osx Preview and the rename and move file drawer you can get from the status bar of an open file. That guy can't even be moved, and perfectly covers up the portion of a document likely to contain info relevant to a filename.

252 points by juancampa 6y ago

I agree about modals. But seems like the same points can be made about the website's design that trying to teach others about modals, have you considered using plain text or a more readable website to convey your point across without resorting to 1-bit retro decoration? Edit: 1 bit lol

jmull 6y ago
1-bit actually. (But, yes, it’s pretty awful and makes it hard to take the content seriously even though it’s good content.)
- chrisco255 6y ago
  I found it entertaining. I would completely ignore this as a generic rant without the stylized presentation.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
joombaga 6y ago
Yeah I had a hard time reading it without getting distracted. So I went to a website that converts pages to plain-text and the first thing that popped up was a newsletter modal. So I guess point taken.
tasty_freeze 6y ago
If my obese doctor tells me I need to lose weight, I have two choices. Either I can weigh his advice, or I can ignore him and cluck that his comment is really rich considering he is overweight himself. I think the first option is helpful; the second option is boringly obvious and not helpful. As for the style, I found it to be entertaining and helped make a possibly dry topic seem a little less like a lecture and more like friendly advice.
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  That's a bad analogy. The reason why you trust your obese doctor for weight loss advice is not because their body shape, but because of the credentials (Doctor). Replace a doctor with a random stranger (which is what this website is, I don't know the person giving advice about the modals) on the street who is obese and tries to tell you with authoritative voice - "Hey! Listen, you're fat and this is how to lose weight!". That's more accurate. I can agree with you about the entertainment value, I personally don't see it but if someone is entertained by it, good.
  - the_other 6y ago
    The depth and clarity of the advice and the effort put into presenting it work as solid credentials in this case. The author is clearly a “doctor” of design. Look how well those those graphics get their message across, whilst also matching the style of the text. That takes a real steady hand (both literately and figuratively).
post_below 6y ago
I don't love retro design either but that seems irrelevant. To anyone who's familiar with the topic it's immediately clear from the copy that the author understands it. Considering that the target audience is other designers, why does the presentation matter?
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  I think it kills the credibility of the designer trying to tell others, authoritatively mind you, that modals are bad while A) I have no idea who this person is or know their credentials B) Why should I listen to them if they're presenting it without a good understanding of design which is what they're trying to preach others? IMO it totally kills it. Others may not have as strong of an opinion. This is the age old question about separating art from the artist. With authoritative didactics, especially as a stranger on the internet, it is even more important to associate art with the artist so to speak. It comes with responsibility.
- buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
  > Considering that the target audience is other designers, why does the presentation matter I fail to see the logic here. Good design helps people learn easier. It's not like designers have some unique ability to learn equally well no matter how poor the design is.
  - post_below 6y ago
    Well context... the information the author is presenting is simple, right brain stuff. No one with UI experience is going to have a hard time digesting it. It's not like he used gifs or flashing colors. Now I kinda want gifs and flashing colors.
    - gindely 6y ago
      That isn't actually true. I think I have UI experience, but I would actually have preferred some mockup examples instead of 1 bit bmp pseudo-thumbnails to represent his ideas. Surely it would be better to show some good user interfaces.

x32n23nr 6y ago

Modals are basically the fancy clone of old school javascript's alert(), and while everyone would rightfully be annoyed being "alerted" needlessly, designers have convinced themselves that it's fine to show modals frequently? Edit: Claiming it's only designers' fault, or generalizing that all designers do that, is obviously wrong. I did not mean that. What I meant to convey (partially failed) is that examples propagate, and somehow design choices are the beginning of this propagation chain.

pvg 6y ago
Modal dialogs are a lot older than alert(). alert() is an instance of a modal dialog, not the other way round.
- seventh-chord 6y ago
  My impression from seeing old windows version (never having used anything older than vista) was that in general using an extra window instead of a separate pane inside the window was more common. As far as I can tell, the old windows explorer would pop open a new window for each opened folder. Now it seems like most programs are run in half/full-screen; They arent really treated as windows. IDEs have their own window-layout system anyways, right? (Modal) dialogs are probably more at place in a world where windows is more that just the name of the os.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    There were modals in Ashton-Tate's Framework back in 1984. I think even GEOS had them.
  - pvg 6y ago
    What I was getting at is that the important thing is the concept (which is about as old as GUIs), the other stuff is implementation detail. The 'modal' part of the a modal dialog is that it takes you out of the 'modeless' interaction state where you can take one of the many UI actions available to you to a state (mode!) where you can do very few things and nothing else. Making GUIs less modal is a similarly ancient UI design holy grail. Applications are modes hence everything from OpenDoc to the just-announced App Clips. A familiar clunky modern mode is 'native' apps vs 'apps' in browsers - a big chunk of technologies many programmers work with today are directly or indirectly related to mitigating its effects.

ameyv 6y ago

I don't want to complain, website is harder to read with all that 8 bitsh font type...Maybe normal post with one example for each idea would be good enough.

kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
The irony of a website with a deliberately terrible and gimmicky UI complaining about a functional UI model that has worked for decades.
- justanotherc 6y ago
  That's kind of what I thought too. Our app is very Modal heavy (including modal inception), but I can't think of any case where the suggested alternatives would actually be better. And that's backed up by the fact that our users regularly tell us how easy and awesome it is to navigate through it.
  - winrid 6y ago
    It's one of those things that when you prototype a design without them you really feel the difference.
- jevgeni 6y ago
  “Worked” isn’t exactly right. “Was popular” is better imo.
runarberg 6y ago
Granted the authors could have tried to get the website to work in reader mode (they might be missing an `<article>` tag or some `<meta>` tags). But in the meantime, it works well in lynx ;)

datavirtue 6y ago

That's why I love mobile...and the people found a way to create modals there. Sigh.

aylmao 6y ago

I remember reading somewhere that most (modal) dialogs are just lazy design. It's easier to have a dialog component and throw whatever notice or controls in there. It's a predictable and flexible canvas. Your password is incorrect? Error dialog. Easier to design and build that a warning state on the text-boxes and a message close to the login button. Writing a post? Editor dialog. It's easier to design and build than something that's inline, grows to accommodate what you're writing, and works predictably when you scroll away or click something else. There's something the user should know? Alert dialog. Much easier than figuring out where in the component hierarchy you should inject a warning, how it should look, what controls you should disable, etc.

d0m 6y ago
I used to have the opinion that modals were bad, but now I think there's a good middle-ground where a lack of modal sometimes generates implicit states with many edge-cases that makes the UX more complex.
elcomet 6y ago
Maybe it's lazy but the important question should be: is it good design? I don't think it is, as it hides some information from the main page. But I think it can be done well and be useful, as said at the end of the article. After all, OS use a lot of modals.
- grumple 6y ago
  The more important question: do the people paying you care if it’s good design? Because the people who have paid me thus far in my career have not cared.
  - tonyarkles 6y ago
    What about the people who have not paid you?
    - jl6 6y ago

w_for_wumbo 6y ago

My biggest issue with modals, is that they never seem to be tested with mobile devices in mind. So when I'm on my phone, the ability to close it is often off the screen. The only choice is to leave the website at that point.

labster 6y ago
I often find the pattern on websites that I visit the site for the first time due to a link, read maybe half a paragraph, and then get a modal popup asking for my email address to subscribe. I've never read any content from them before, how would I know if I want to subscribe? My phone is also in landscape mode, so the modal's close button is off the screen, and I can't scroll to it cause it's an absolutely positioned modal. So the only logical thing to do is avoid the site in the future, they're more interested in extracting money from their existing readers than getting new readers. Sorry, maybe if you had let me read one article I may have liked your content.
reaperducer 6y ago
My biggest issue with modals, is that they never seem to be tested with mobile devices in mind I feel your pain. The web sites I maintain have at least 70% mobile users. But the managers (and designers!) only see them on giant-screen desktops, and only care what it looks like in-house, not to the customers. I'm tired of constantly telling layers of bosses that what they want won't work on mobile, which is where their customers are.

rightnow 6y ago

I use full screen modals for my new project. A list of items. U click one and the item appears in a full screen modal. U close and you're at the same place you started.users love it and i dont see a problem with it.

nameoda 6y ago

The list of reasons why modals are bad are all very subjective. A little more explanation would have helped make the case that modals are bad. Not to mention that what should be a list is displayed as a table (－‸ლ)

diegof79 6y ago
I agree, the site visuals and short messages doesn’t explain well why they are bad. I’ll try to fill that gap. Modals switch the application normal mode to get your attention. So they interrupt your “flow”. Most of the reasons to use them could be resolved by other means, that are better in terms of UX but requires more work in both design and implementation: - Confirmation modals can be substituted with auto-save, undo, and restore, but is more complex to implement. - Modals to show more info can be resolved with progressive disclosure or by improving the information architecture. However, like with many design choices there are cases where modals are a good option. For example, for certain confirmations and navigation the advantage of the modal is that the backdrop makes clear where do you go after dismissing the modal (bottom sheets in mobile are a example). Another reason why modals get a bad rep is that they have all sorts of implementation issues in web, and in the desktop the mode change for a window is not prominent (macOS solves that with sheets, but Windows still has that problem)
- Enginerrrd 6y ago
  They also break zoom and other features some people rely on a lot.

quickthrower2 6y ago

In what context? If you design a desktop application, like say Word then modals are more appropriate than the alternatives in many situations. For a site like Medium, a modal is an annoyance. If I asked for something (click Settings) then I am happier with my modal than if I didn't ask (we're going to stuff cookies on your page anyway, here is our arse coverer). The underlying message I take is we "use too many things that make it easier for the coder and harder for the user". Sometimes that's a modal, but sometimes that's NOT using a modal!

renewiltord 6y ago

Very easy to use a modal if I’m editing other parts of UI.

l0b0 6y ago

There's a very simple rule of thumb: must the user give some feedback before it makes any sense to use the rest of the site? If so, it's fine to use a modal. Otherwise, don't. Some examples: Payment page: not a modal. The user might want to add more stuff to the cart, even when they are literally one click away from purchasing. Blanking out the rest of the page means they now have to work around the site to buy more stuff. Error message: not a modal. The user is vanishingly unlikely to report an error immediately (obviously it's logged in any case), and probably just wants to try again with slightly different input. Irreversible action confirmation: not a modal. For the same reason as the payment page, the user might want to do something else before retrying the irreversible action. Just display a prominent message so the user knows the action is not yet done. Or, if at all possible, implement undo instead. My job depends on it: OK, use a modal. We forgive you.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

recursivedoubts 6y ago

Let me see if I can articulate this well: The problem problem with modals in a web page context is that they go against the statelessness of the html request/response model. They end up building up a lot of local state in the client, both model state as well as UI state, that eventually need to be reconciled with the server. If the user closes the modal, is the data saved for later? Does the form reset? Does the server know anything about it? If it is a wizard, were previous steps saved? And so on. After many years of working on and with intercoolerjs/htmx, I now typically prefer inline editing and wizards, to a modal solutions. It fits better with the web model, allows for proper URLs, etc. The inline-edit demo from htmx is a good example of something that might be implemented as a modal by some developers, but works very well as an inline-edit UI instead: https://htmx.org/examples/click-to-edit/ https://htmx.org/examples/click-to-edit/ (NB: I was lazy and did not make the URL update as I should have)

runawaybottle 6y ago
I’ll try to condense it more. If you play a video game and a modal pops up, it takes you out of the experience. It’s the same as (hypothetically) me having to go into my HN profile to find a list of comments I upvoted to then go ahead and downvote (versus just having the downvote button next to the post). Can’t teach this stuff, you basically need to be confronted by tons of bad UI in software, games, physical printed forms, processes, until you get a good sense of taste. I can’t teach HN devs that my thumb covers both the upvote and downvote button on mobile. Can’t teach it.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  "Modal" isn't precise enough, then. Imagine you're playing a game and you click "Options" and a modal window pops up with the options you can tweak. Or an endless image gallery where clicking an image enlarges it inside a modal that you can dismiss to resume scrolling without losing your place. It didn't wrongfully force you out of experience, it's what you wanted. Seems like we're talking about getting in the way of users where crappy modals are just one way of doing that. Navigating to a new page seems even more jarring in TFA examples.
- 6y ago

grishka 6y ago

The one UX anti-pattern that needs to die for sure is what this site calls "self-spawning modals". They're not only on websites — iOS is very annoying with them for example.

bedatadriven 6y ago

I was just about to share this our designer, who is always talking me down from modals, when I reached the bottom and discovered that our designer is in fact the author. I seriously can't say enough for this message. Adrian helped us redesign our app 2 years ago, dispatching many many modals in the process, and delivering a huge increase in usability that our customers and users very much do care about.

prox 6y ago
I implore everyone to read the fundamental book : about face This book argues about a lot of UI topics, and with a lot of detail. It’s the bible of UI design imo.
- mrgreenfur 6y ago
  What's the book title? "About Face"?
  - prox 6y ago
    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/289062.About_Face_3 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/289062.About_Face_3 This is a link, you can also search “about face interaction design”

slezyr 6y ago

The website is readable only at 30% zoom(couldn't zoom out even more) on the 4k 27" display also it messed up mine scroll wheel in some way, broke mouse cursor.

triyambakam 6y ago

Is this website considered "brutalist"?

WorldMaker 6y ago
In the web sense of "true to web form" brutalist? Not really, for instance the tables are not made to look like TABLEs and are in fact ULs and such. This design aesthetic might better be described as "(Mac) Classical". (Brutalist isn't only about minimalism.)

seph-reed 6y ago

Modals are a good way to show complex content without throwing away your current render. Whatever you were doing before the modal came up, you can go straight back to that. No re-draws, no scrolling back to the place you were at. Ofc we've all seen them done terribly.

saagarjha 6y ago

One thing I like to do is preview a link by Force clicking on it in my browser and scrolling through it–the preview window lets me scroll, but not interact with the page. For many sites this is quite convenient, because I can skim the page without being interrupted. But when modals pop up they cover the content and I can't read the page because I can't dismiss them! So if you're looking for another reason to drop modals, here's one. Also, hilariously this website uncovers a bug in Safari where the cursor doesn't reset once you leave the page bounds, so I have a huge pixellated cursor hanging around until I click somewhere else :P

gindely 6y ago
What does that mean? Force clicking? You apply so much pressue that it breaks a touchscreen/touchpad so that it makes a click noise when you tap?
- saagarjha 6y ago
  In case that wasn’t a joke: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204352 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204352
  - gindely 6y ago
    Oh, another of Apple's hidden features. Once upon a time, one button mice were a feature so that features weren't hidden and even beginner users could quickly become power users.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      This used to be three-finger tap on older Macs.

justanotherc 6y ago

Modals are good for when you need to show a new blocking state without losing the current state. There are many valid reasons for that scenario. Even for modal inception. Use them for that purpose, no need to swear them off completely.

qntmfred 6y ago

I've been preaching against modals and carousels for years. I'm a big fan of http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/ http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/ and while I had long ago intended to create with a similarly implemented site that demonstrates the pitfalls of modals with a series of modals, this site does a pretty good job of highlighting the main issues and alternatives too

klyrs 6y ago
Wow, that's almost useable when you don't have to wait for a new ad to load with every click...

ozaark 6y ago

The key design principle overlooked here is Progressive Disclosure[1], which modals and dialogs can be very good at delivering. Progressive disclosure retains user focus on a single task as opposed to showing everything at once. Accordions have similar function to modals and dialogs but adding further task controls to an already complex interface isn't always the best solution. The author goes on to state that even full screen modals are bad, but what difference does the user see? If done well the user should still be able to use the browser back button, escape key, etc to navigate out. In modern applications, pages can transition from one to the next without a "full page load" -is that also bad for some reason? Think of many popular mobile apps like Instacart, Doordash, etc that allow a user to dive into categories that slide on top of the existing content to give further controls; is that not ok? Every element in the DOM can be applied inappropriately but that doesn't shift the blame to the elements themselves. One could argue an entire dedicated site that only uses modals based on the misuse of illegible fonts would be about as apropros. [1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/progressive-disclosure/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/progressive-disclosure/

andreareina 6y ago
TFA is not saying all modals are bad, just most. Progressive disclosure is a fine thing, but that doesn't have to mean modals. Most of the time a discreet notification that doesn't interrupt the user's flow is what's appropriate; I think Tidal does a good job here, by highlighting one feature per screen, and if I don't tap on it to see what it is I'm able to go about my way. Since we're quoting NNGroup, here's their guidance on modals[1] (emphasis mine): 1) Important warnings 2) Critical to continuing the current process Most modals are unasked for, not relevant to the user's current needs (no matter what the dev/marketing might think), and unwanted. Modal to select filter settings when I've clicked/tapped the 'filter' button? That's a good use. [1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/modal-nonmodal-dialog/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/modal-nonmodal-dialog/
- ozaark 6y ago
  TFA literally says don't use full screen modals, ever. I disagreed with examples of that not being necessarily relevant with the way today's applications can work. Important from the NNGroup article you linked even demonstrates great modal usage and states "3. Modal dialogs can be used to fragment a complex workflow into simpler steps." and "4. Use modal dialogs to ask for information that, when provided, could significantly lessen users’ work or effort." That's important - modals are not just intrusive pop-ups as many designers and others in this thread have decided that they are. Again, every element can be used inappropriately but that doesn't mean the elements are to blame.

Areading314 6y ago

The reason modals are so popular is because they work really well when trying to convert views to signups.

jaequery 6y ago

I must be in the minority as I love modals.

supernova87a 6y ago

My main gripe with modal windows is the name. The first couple times some developer told me that's what she was using, I waited for her to explain what modal meant. But she did not, as if it was standard self-explanatory terminology. Way to name something a word that sounds like it has a standard (even deeper) meaning, but does not. With time, I have just accepted that this is what modal means (I'm going to create a window of this type to display the data/filters), disconnected from any meaning of the term "mode". But I still don't like it.

Izkata 6y ago
AFAIK, it is based on the word "mode", because what's supposed to happen is the rest of the page is disabled while you deal with the modal. You've switched modes from "normal usage" to "the popup". If you can still interact with some other part of the page while it's open, it's not a modal, it's just a popup.
waheoo 6y ago
Just because you cant see the connection doesnt mean its not there. Adjective, (of a proposition) in which the predicate is affirmed of the subject with some qualification, or which involves the affirmation of possibility, impossibility, necessity, or contingency. Its pretty plain to see how a confirm or error message is applied to that definition no?
- supernova87a 6y ago
  Not really. It's a stretch (at least for me) to see the connection between a window that shows you some data, or a toggle, or some arbitrary information and the idea that the window should be called "modal" as if it controls some "mode".
  - waheoo 6y ago
    Youre misunderstanding that definitions position if you think it has something to do with modes. > in which the predicate is affirmed of the subject with some qualification, E.g. an error with an error message Or > or which involves the affirmation of possibility, impossibility, necessity, or contingency. E.g. an are you sure? dialog preceeding a save.

Kagerjay 6y ago

the worst thing is doing a modal that calls a modal, that's the worst offender of them all

6510 6y ago

also see: popups

jerry40 6y ago

Oh I thought the subject is about the modal verbs

farouqaldori 6y ago

The awful readability of that website must be satire, right?

627467 6y ago

Modals can be a lazy (and worst, wrong) solution. But I've found that pavlovian bashing of modals is as lazy and unproductive. > And remember to always ask, kids: >“Why does this have to be a modal?” In my experience people don't need to be remembered to ask this. And generally people can't justify why it shouldn't be a modal or why a non-modal solution is better than a modal one.

Kaze404 6y ago

This is only tangentially related, but one thing I'm absolutely sick of is rounded corners. I don't know why, and I don't know if it makes any sense, but opening a page and seeing literally everything with border-radius makes my blood boil. It feels like they're trying to protect me from sharp corners, as if they're dangerous. Come on, we're all adults here. We can take a few 90 degree angles.

duncan-donuts 6y ago
The new GitHub UI is too damn round. Everything is rounded. I’m all for changing a UI to make it better. GitHub needed to change some things around because it is cluttered with features and hard to navigate at times. But rounded corners everywhere is all I see.
gindely 6y ago
> Come on, we're all adults here. We can take a few 90 degree angles. I know that 90 degree angles on webpages are not more dangerous for children, parents, adults, or any other known subcategory of humans than for any other known subcategory of humans, but ... lots of people who use webpages and dev tools are actually children. Didn't a lot of us get started as kids? Have we collectively forgotten the olden days, when to print something, the solution was to ask the neighbor's next door kid? (who was probably you). Printers aren't any easier to use today than they were back then, but I guess that practice is over nowadays.
- Kaze404 6y ago
  Fair enough, but some of the worst offenders of this aren't really targeted at children or something they'd be interested in. The new Github UI (which I adore, besides this particular issue) is a really bad offender for example. If you go to your profile page, there's not a single not-round border. The exception are the little squares showing activity, which makes it even worse because in the caption underneath they are rounded. What happened there?
hpen 6y ago
This just feels really picky to me. I mean it's a rounded corner for Christ sake.

js8 6y ago

Typing this from Ubuntu, Gnome 3 I think, in Firefox, I press Ctrl-S to save the page, and I get a modal dialog, which cannot be even moved. Sometimes, it actually obscures something that I cannot read on the screen. If you have to use a modal element at least allow me to get it out of the way so that I can read the text under it!

yencabulator 6y ago
Every time this happens in any environment, the information I need for deciding the filename is below the modal.

tbirdny 6y ago

I'm reminded of a quote in Inside Macintosh Volume 1: "But, gentlemen, you overdo the mode." From John Dryden, The Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery, 1972. That quote really stuck in my head.

discordance 6y ago

I've been using Azure a lot, and they use blades (essentially horizontal accordions) instead of modals. I was playing with Alibaba Cloud's UI and it's all modals and feels much much nicer to use. I wouldn't use Ali Cloud due to Chinese ownership issues, but I do like their UX.

winrid 6y ago

I hate modals - I'll never add them to products I build. Edit: To provide a little more substance here - for example in one product of mine that actually has customers - confirmation is done via inline elements that slide into the page. So you want delete a comment for example. The delete/cancel buttons slide into the box for that comment. No weird context switch for your eyes.

gindely 6y ago
Since you deny a weird context switch for your eyes, are these actually inline elements? That would imply the size of the containers is changing. Which would surely be a weird context switch. But at least I can have no doubt what my action is about to affect - I get frustrated on sites when it says "you're about to delete these items" and i have no idea whether it agrees with me about which items I'm about to delete or not. But if they're overlaid elements, like a context sensitive menu that contains two options - delete, cancel - is there any substantive difference between a menu and a modal? The main advantage of a classic menu over a modal seems to be that it has a implicit cancel option that is uniformally implemented. But nowadays, menus are implemented without toolkit support - yay dom, yay - so even that is not consistent.
- winrid 6y ago
  This is what I mean: http://imgur.com/a/hY9eM77 http://imgur.com/a/hY9eM77 Content size doesn't change in my case and I would highly advise against changing the sizing of elements on the page for something like this. The buttons are sized vertical based on the content up to a limit.
  - gindely 6y ago
    Yep okay, so I guess that's not inline by my definition (since it overlays the text). I have definitely seen webpages that change the size of the containing box to add in the confirmation message and buttons. I guess it's an between case I didn't consider - it's maybe not modal with respect to the whole app, but it seems to be modal with respect to that one comment (you can ignore it and do something else with the rest of the program, but with that comment, you can't even read it).

jevgeni 6y ago

I have a rule: if I get an unnecessary modal, I leave.

davedx 6y ago

Hah! I often have the experience that indeed a modal should actually have been a new page, but I was too lazy to build the thing so I went with the modal. Then later the modal needs more options or fields, and I end up having to convert it to a new page anyway... lesson mostly learned now. Agree with the article.

imtringued 6y ago

Eclipse uses modals in the worst possible way. Usually you want to copy the name of a type or variable into a modal but you are already into two layers of modals. You will have to close all of them and lose progress. Using more than one layer of modals is always bad design.

pablosca 6y ago

Love this a lot! The author is right on most (well, all) of the statements.

ascotan 6y ago

Back when js frameworks became a thing, modals were a shiny ball that everyone wanted to put into their app (because they came with the framework). Designers that worked with these modals became poisoned to the fact that this is how a UI should look. Like an old hairstyle they're now thankfully going out of fashion.

mlonkibjuyhv 6y ago

There are so many bad modals in mainstream desktop software. Is there any good reason that an open file dialog completely disables all other interaction? What if I quickly have to task switch, or a piece of info relating to which file i wanna open is just off screen? A personal favourite is osx Preview and the rename and move file drawer you can get from the status bar of an open file. That guy can't even be moved, and perfectly covers up the portion of a document likely to contain info relevant to a filename.