8 ms·

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 the

by 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
      They get what they paid for.
  - yowlingcat 6y ago
    Have you considered that the problem could be your choice of people who pay you rather than the idea of good design being valuable? Not that it's necessarily an either/or situation here, mind you.
    - grumple 6y ago
      Unfortunately, you never really find out until you work somewhere.
      - yowlingcat 6y ago
        True that may be, if you are not uncovering this during your interview process, do you think it's possible there's room for improvement in how you conduct your end of the due diligence process?
        grumple 6y ago
        Unfortunately, the CTO that hired me left the company two weeks after I started which caused a significant cultural shift. I did my due diligence, no need for the virtual gaslighting.
        yowlingcat 6y ago
        > I did my due diligence, no need for the virtual gaslighting. > Unfortunately, you never really find out until you work somewhere. If you invest in a stock that you tried to research and it drops to a value of zero and you say "well you never really know until you try it", am I gaslighting you if I tell you that there's room for improvement in your due diligence process? A CTO hiring you and then leaving the company 2 weeks after you started is a major red flag. This is not a common occurrence in anything but a dysfunctional org. Now, there is of course only so far you can predict into the future, and surprises do happen. But whose decision was it to accept the offer? And who is ultimately on the hook for it, whether it's in your control or not? To protect yourself, you need to own the responsibility for that decision, even if you have no control over it happening inside the company. There are companies you can accept offers from where the chances of this happening are one in several thousand, and companies where the chances are closer to one in fifty. To what extent are you confident in your ability to accurately predict and gauge a range and confidence interval about that? I used to say the same things you did, and I kept getting the same results. Eventually, I just got tired of it and I realized I'd do quite a lot to prevent it from happening in the future -- or at least, if it happened again, I didn't want it to be a surprise. I'm thankful to say that I'm significantly closer to that point now, although it took many years of trial and error. And surely, I have even more room to improve, and I look forward to honing my technique even further as I gain more experience! If what you're trying isn't working for you, it may be worthwhile to try to reconsider your process and see if you can improve it. If you don't even try to improve it and you're unhappy with your results, why do you think that would ever change?
  - lucasmullens 6y ago
    Design is one of those things people often don't consciously notice, but affects their overall impression of a product. I think there's a pretty universal consensus that a good design matters.
    - tobr 6y ago
      A lot of people don’t understand design as something that goes beyond the surface layer, though. They see that someone picked a pleasing color palette and layout, but maybe they don’t imagine that a designer would come and tell them to stop using modals.
  - tobr 6y ago
    This is a good point, and often the reality - it’s unfortunate that it is being downvoted. But it’s a defeatist stance. It’s a central part of the designer’s job to contend that human factors are important, and explain what the effects of shortcuts and poor user experience are on the value of the product and the well-being of its users. If you’re lucky your client hired you because they, too, care and believe design to be important, but that’s far from a given.
    - gindely 6y ago
      Well yeah, but if the person who is in charge of the modal is the implementer, not the designer, then they may not have the expertise to design a good ui. And many designers are artists ("designers") not ux engineers, so their main goal is to make something that shows their artistic skill - they're going to be trained in design packages, not designing a good ui. (I mean, when was the last time you saw a clickable button on a modern user interface? nowadays it's just "guess what this shade of grey means")
      - tobr 6y ago
        > if the person who is in charge of the modal is the implementer, not the designer, then they may not have the expertise to design a good ui Isn’t the obvious fix there to let the designer design and the implementer implement? Obviously if the designer is kept out of the loop completely they may not even be in a position to argue for the importance of good design (or just any design process), but then it shouldn’t be surprising that the outcome is bad design.
        gindely 6y ago
        Well for many programs there isn't really any separate designer, particularly for line of business apps. That was really where I was coming from - the person who designs the app is simply someone who was trained in coding. In any case, as I said, you get a problem if the person who designs the app is simply someone who was trained in coding, and you get a problem if they're simply someone who was trained in art.
- vidanay 6y ago
  And OS modals are crap too. Many many times I have watched someone completely ignore to modal message and get frustrated trying to click on something in the background.
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
>I remember reading somewhere that most (modal) dialogs are just lazy design If they are lazy design does that mean they are quick design, especially if you find a problem that needs solving in the middle of getting ready for the launch of your MVP it might be easier to do a modal. Of course this would lead to legacy design that needs fixing over time, and legacy code to support the quick and dirty design decisions.
ktpsns 6y ago
Especially blocking modals (which both stop your code and the user) are a damned easy way to interact with the user in most programming languages. Nothing is easier then to write alert("foo") or if(confirm("are you sure?")) do_sth();

by aylmao 6y ago

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
    They get what they paid for.
- yowlingcat 6y ago
  Have you considered that the problem could be your choice of people who pay you rather than the idea of good design being valuable? Not that it's necessarily an either/or situation here, mind you.
  - grumple 6y ago
    Unfortunately, you never really find out until you work somewhere.
    - yowlingcat 6y ago
      True that may be, if you are not uncovering this during your interview process, do you think it's possible there's room for improvement in how you conduct your end of the due diligence process?
      - grumple 6y ago
        Unfortunately, the CTO that hired me left the company two weeks after I started which caused a significant cultural shift. I did my due diligence, no need for the virtual gaslighting.
        yowlingcat 6y ago
        > I did my due diligence, no need for the virtual gaslighting. > Unfortunately, you never really find out until you work somewhere. If you invest in a stock that you tried to research and it drops to a value of zero and you say "well you never really know until you try it", am I gaslighting you if I tell you that there's room for improvement in your due diligence process? A CTO hiring you and then leaving the company 2 weeks after you started is a major red flag. This is not a common occurrence in anything but a dysfunctional org. Now, there is of course only so far you can predict into the future, and surprises do happen. But whose decision was it to accept the offer? And who is ultimately on the hook for it, whether it's in your control or not? To protect yourself, you need to own the responsibility for that decision, even if you have no control over it happening inside the company. There are companies you can accept offers from where the chances of this happening are one in several thousand, and companies where the chances are closer to one in fifty. To what extent are you confident in your ability to accurately predict and gauge a range and confidence interval about that? I used to say the same things you did, and I kept getting the same results. Eventually, I just got tired of it and I realized I'd do quite a lot to prevent it from happening in the future -- or at least, if it happened again, I didn't want it to be a surprise. I'm thankful to say that I'm significantly closer to that point now, although it took many years of trial and error. And surely, I have even more room to improve, and I look forward to honing my technique even further as I gain more experience! If what you're trying isn't working for you, it may be worthwhile to try to reconsider your process and see if you can improve it. If you don't even try to improve it and you're unhappy with your results, why do you think that would ever change?
- lucasmullens 6y ago
  Design is one of those things people often don't consciously notice, but affects their overall impression of a product. I think there's a pretty universal consensus that a good design matters.
  - tobr 6y ago
    A lot of people don’t understand design as something that goes beyond the surface layer, though. They see that someone picked a pleasing color palette and layout, but maybe they don’t imagine that a designer would come and tell them to stop using modals.
- tobr 6y ago
  This is a good point, and often the reality - it’s unfortunate that it is being downvoted. But it’s a defeatist stance. It’s a central part of the designer’s job to contend that human factors are important, and explain what the effects of shortcuts and poor user experience are on the value of the product and the well-being of its users. If you’re lucky your client hired you because they, too, care and believe design to be important, but that’s far from a given.
  - gindely 6y ago
    Well yeah, but if the person who is in charge of the modal is the implementer, not the designer, then they may not have the expertise to design a good ui. And many designers are artists ("designers") not ux engineers, so their main goal is to make something that shows their artistic skill - they're going to be trained in design packages, not designing a good ui. (I mean, when was the last time you saw a clickable button on a modern user interface? nowadays it's just "guess what this shade of grey means")
    - tobr 6y ago
      > if the person who is in charge of the modal is the implementer, not the designer, then they may not have the expertise to design a good ui Isn’t the obvious fix there to let the designer design and the implementer implement? Obviously if the designer is kept out of the loop completely they may not even be in a position to argue for the importance of good design (or just any design process), but then it shouldn’t be surprising that the outcome is bad design.
      - gindely 6y ago
        Well for many programs there isn't really any separate designer, particularly for line of business apps. That was really where I was coming from - the person who designs the app is simply someone who was trained in coding. In any case, as I said, you get a problem if the person who designs the app is simply someone who was trained in coding, and you get a problem if they're simply someone who was trained in art.
vidanay 6y ago
And OS modals are crap too. Many many times I have watched someone completely ignore to modal message and get frustrated trying to click on something in the background.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

>I remember reading somewhere that most (modal) dialogs are just lazy design If they are lazy design does that mean they are quick design, especially if you find a problem that needs solving in the middle of getting ready for the launch of your MVP it might be easier to do a modal. Of course this would lead to legacy design that needs fixing over time, and legacy code to support the quick and dirty design decisions.

ktpsns 6y ago

Especially blocking modals (which both stop your code and the user) are a damned easy way to interact with the user in most programming languages. Nothing is easier then to write alert("foo") or if(confirm("are you sure?")) do_sth();