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What is it with modern "designers" and their visceral hate towards text input boxes: https://www.patternfly.org/v4/components/text-input https://www.patternfly.

What is it with modern "designers" and their visceral hate towards text input boxes: https://www.patternfly.org/v4/components/text-input https://www.patternfly.org/v4/components/text-input For all their talk about accessibility they go out of their way to make basic input as inaccessible as possible. Remember how Google needed a user study with 600 people to arrive at common sense conclusion that text input has to look like text input? (And sti failed to make it be that) Yeah

jmholla 4y ago
What's wrong with the text boxes?
- setr 4y ago
  My own issue with these is that they handle excessive input by horizontal scrolling, which can only be considered a solution by someone who prioritizes the consistency/alignment of their layout over usability (a truly villainous prioritization)
  - cush 4y ago
    You want your browser's address bar to wrap and expand vertically?
    - cbsks 4y ago
      That would be great! Could you imagine being able to see the entire URL at once? That’s the dream…
      - graypegg 4y ago
        I would especially love that on mobile devices, trying to align a cursor in a URL in the tiny iOS safari URL input is the worst. Worse than most inputs, it had the audacity to sling you back to the start if you look at it the wrong way while trying to scroll right.
  - soulofmischief 4y ago
    But that's the default text input behavior... Maybe you are thinking of the textarea element? https://www.patternfly.org/v4/components/text-area/#textarea https://www.patternfly.org/v4/components/text-area/#textarea
- Scarbutt 4y ago
  They only have a bottom border that stands out.
- illiarian 4y ago
  Modern "designers" hate that input boxes are just that: visually recognizable accessible input boxes. They go out of their way to make it anything but an easily recognizable input box. "Oh, why don't we make it just a white field on a white background with just an underlines and perhaps invisible light gray borders. And for disabled state we'll make it an unreadable gray on gray" You see it everywhere. That 600 people study that Google did for Material Design? It's infuriating, through and through: "Enclosed text fields with a rectangular (box) shape performed better than those with a line affordance" https://medium.com/google-design/the-evolution-of-material-designs-text-fields-603688b3fe03 https://medium.com/google-design/the-evolution-of-material-d... Compare and contrast with people who actually think about these things: https://design-system.service.gov.uk/components/text-input/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/components/text-input/
  - SebastianKra 4y ago
    If contrast is an issue to you, check out accessibility options or monitor settings. Maximizing contrast everywhere usually sacrifices readability elsewhere. (Almost like everything in design is a trade-off.) Gov.uk is a government site that has to accessible to absolutely everyone, including tech-illiterate users. It also has a comparatively low density.
    - illiarian 4y ago
      > If contrast is an issue to you, check out accessibility options or monitor settings. No. It's not the job of the user to make thin near-invisible lines or gray-on-gray text legible > Gov.uk is a government site that has to accessible to absolutely everyone, Exactly. And how is this a bad thing?
      - SebastianKra 4y ago
        If a design was chosen to work best for the majority of users but it doesn't work for you, then accessibility settings can help to accommodate you. I think the "Increase Contrast" setting on MacOS does exactly what you want. The one in Windows 11 also seems quite decent. Maybe if you try it out, you'll realize why it isn't the default. > how is [the uncompromising accessibility of Gov.uk] a bad thing? It only works because of it's low density. There's very little consideration for hierarchy or depth.
4dayworkweek4u 4y ago
Good point!
thangngoc89 4y ago
You reminded me of all those Google Form inputs that only have a single line but expecting me to fill in more than a short sentence. It’s even more frustrating on mobile (Safari, iOS) that I can’t move the cursor anywhere

jmholla 4y ago

What's wrong with the text boxes?

setr 4y ago
My own issue with these is that they handle excessive input by horizontal scrolling, which can only be considered a solution by someone who prioritizes the consistency/alignment of their layout over usability (a truly villainous prioritization)
- cush 4y ago
  You want your browser's address bar to wrap and expand vertically?
  - cbsks 4y ago
    That would be great! Could you imagine being able to see the entire URL at once? That’s the dream…
    - graypegg 4y ago
      I would especially love that on mobile devices, trying to align a cursor in a URL in the tiny iOS safari URL input is the worst. Worse than most inputs, it had the audacity to sling you back to the start if you look at it the wrong way while trying to scroll right.
- soulofmischief 4y ago
  But that's the default text input behavior... Maybe you are thinking of the textarea element? https://www.patternfly.org/v4/components/text-area/#textarea https://www.patternfly.org/v4/components/text-area/#textarea
Scarbutt 4y ago
They only have a bottom border that stands out.
illiarian 4y ago
Modern "designers" hate that input boxes are just that: visually recognizable accessible input boxes. They go out of their way to make it anything but an easily recognizable input box. "Oh, why don't we make it just a white field on a white background with just an underlines and perhaps invisible light gray borders. And for disabled state we'll make it an unreadable gray on gray" You see it everywhere. That 600 people study that Google did for Material Design? It's infuriating, through and through: "Enclosed text fields with a rectangular (box) shape performed better than those with a line affordance" https://medium.com/google-design/the-evolution-of-material-designs-text-fields-603688b3fe03 https://medium.com/google-design/the-evolution-of-material-d... Compare and contrast with people who actually think about these things: https://design-system.service.gov.uk/components/text-input/ https://design-system.service.gov.uk/components/text-input/
- SebastianKra 4y ago
  If contrast is an issue to you, check out accessibility options or monitor settings. Maximizing contrast everywhere usually sacrifices readability elsewhere. (Almost like everything in design is a trade-off.) Gov.uk is a government site that has to accessible to absolutely everyone, including tech-illiterate users. It also has a comparatively low density.
  - illiarian 4y ago
    > If contrast is an issue to you, check out accessibility options or monitor settings. No. It's not the job of the user to make thin near-invisible lines or gray-on-gray text legible > Gov.uk is a government site that has to accessible to absolutely everyone, Exactly. And how is this a bad thing?
    - SebastianKra 4y ago
      If a design was chosen to work best for the majority of users but it doesn't work for you, then accessibility settings can help to accommodate you. I think the "Increase Contrast" setting on MacOS does exactly what you want. The one in Windows 11 also seems quite decent. Maybe if you try it out, you'll realize why it isn't the default. > how is [the uncompromising accessibility of Gov.uk] a bad thing? It only works because of it's low density. There's very little consideration for hierarchy or depth.

4dayworkweek4u 4y ago

Good point!

thangngoc89 4y ago

You reminded me of all those Google Form inputs that only have a single line but expecting me to fill in more than a short sentence. It’s even more frustrating on mobile (Safari, iOS) that I can’t move the cursor anywhere