3 ms·

I strongly disagree. It’s the most natural thing in the world for GUI/mouse users to drag-n-drop objects. It’s even nice for touch with the right OS/hardware su

• jacurtis 5y ago
  You are confusing "usable" with "intuitive". You are both right. Drag and drops are incredibly intuitive for users. It feels natural to most people and is easy for many of them to use. But the parent comment is also right because drag and drops are not very USABLE. Meaning that if someone is using a screen reader or an unusual device (phone, kiosk, kindle, etc) the drag and drop functionality may not work well for them or might not work at all. It might be INTUITIVE on what the user is supposed to do, but it isn't USABLE. We have all encountered non-usable interfaces that we simply can not interact with for various reasons. This also becomes a concern for accessibility. A screen reader may not be able to read it to someone who is blind. An older device might not be able to display or operate the drag-able functionality. A user that relies on something like "Voice Control" may not be able to use your drag-and-drop system. Ideally you would do both. You could show an interface that has up and down arrows for each item to move items manually. But also make those elements drag-able if users choose that option. But this takes more and more development time. That is the constant battle between software engineers and decision makers. Anything is possible with enough development time, but decision makers are quick to move developers along when the item is "good enough", which generally means the feature works on the decision-maker's devices.
  • asddubs 5y ago
    that just sounds all the more reason for a drag and drop thing to be implemented as a standard form element, that way browsers/screen readers can provide an accessibility fallback. whereas with javascript widgets, that's unlikely to happen quite often. and people are going to do drag and drop interfaces no matter what