Hot answers tagged javascript
56
If the user has intentionally disabled Javascript, it's probably because they explicitly want to avoid sites that "make heavy use of javascript" and would thus have a bad impression of such a statement. Explaining to them what they're missing is the best way to convince them to change.
Clearly state what they're missing. Chances are there's some good reason ...
15
Birth year: They keep starting at the current year, when most people will be 18+ and have to scroll more than 18 years to get to their age. They feel old and have to scroll a lot.
Date Picker vs just typing it in: unless the date requires context of other dates or you need to select a range, just let people type in the date. Its proven that people don't ...
14
I'd just use the noscript tag.
<noscript>
<div class="error message">
We're sorry but our site <strong>requires</strong> JavaScript.
</div>
</noscript>
or it can just be a notice that says it works best with JavaScript enabled like this site does.
13
While JoJo's comment is valid there's always a trade off between the extra effort required to implement full graceful degradation and the rewards that it brings.
If Yahoo!'s figures are correct then the question you have to answer becomes "is this 2% of the on-line population valuable to me?"
If their sample is representative of your user base then the ...
12
Pragmatically it's when the cost of doing the graceful degradation outweighs the benefit.
So in your case, you really need to know the number of users who have JavaScript turned off. If this is a large proportion of your user base, then you probably have to do something to cater for them. If it's only a small percentage, then you probably don't need to ...
11
Normally the Backspace key takes you back a page as it is a keyboard shortcut for the Back button. When an input field is focused, the backspace only works within the input field. For many keyboard users (as in prefer the keyboard and avoid switching between keyboard and mouse) it therefore is a definite drawback when a site auto focuses an input field ...
8
The following is not an inherent drawback of setting the keyboard focus, but anyway an undesired effect which was caused by a combination of a focus-setting script and the behavior of certain browsers.
At least in Firefox, setting the keyboard focus can steal the focus even from the UI element belonging to the browser itself such as the address bar. ...
8
In order to comply with web accessibility guidelines including Section 508, you must make functionality available to people using assistive technology. This could mean people might be using text-based browsers or screen readers that don't necessarily take advantage of the interactive functionality added using Javascript. Therefore, your best bet is to design ...
7
Sadly making the focus box clearer is not common enough. It's not just about the browser, it's also about the monitor - the setting of brightness and contrast and the quality of the monitor. The border of the input box can be indistinguishable from white on cheaper/older flat panel monitors - often found in schools. Light blues in particular are a ...
7
In order for a site work when Javascript is disabled you need graceful degradation. Graceful degradation is a philosohy of coding that "enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of some of its components," this case being JavaScript purposelly disabled.
Even though you can re-factor your JavaScript and HTML code to make it ...
7
In a marketing and publisher point of view what Tynt is providing seems very beneficial for their needs. On a UX point of view it's a double edged sword in my meaning.
You could argue that the user experience benefits from the auto generated addition to copied content since it seamlessly enables the receiver or "copier" of the content to keep track of its ...
7
Look at how times are shown in other stopwatch applications as an indication, as they have been refined over years. The typical way that it is shown is simply as HH:MM:SS.
If you're only looking for time to an accuracy of seconds and you want more than just numbers, then something like 2h 23m 12s seems clear enough without taking up lots of space. You ...
7
Keep it simple:
As the user types into the first textfield, have a strength indicator near by telling the user if their password is strong that updates as they type. Don't enable the confirm field until they have entered a password that meets your requirements.
When they tab into the second field to confirm, have a label next to it that updates as they ...
6
If you only have two levels, you could use an ordinary master detail approach.
See #1 here: http://designingwebinterfaces.com/designing-web-interfaces-12-screen-patterns
If more levels are needed, you could go for the drill down design pattern.
Eg: http://quince.infragistics.com/Patterns/Cascading%20Lists.aspx
If you want to keep every thing in the same ...
6
I think you can add a button after the 'country select input', then reload the incomplete form with the selected country territories. When Javascript is enabled, hide the button.
If it's worth worrying about users with Javascript disabled, I think it depends on the kind of thing you're doing, the target, and the time you have to do it. In this case, seems ...
6
There's no answer that applies universally. I will say that accommodating non-JS is becoming much less of a priority. From an accessibility standpoint, things like ARIA are helping us move in the right direction allowing JavaScript to be an assumed standard tool.
I usually draw the line at sanity. At a certain point, the amount of time/effort spent on an ...
6
Yes
Regarding sliders/carousels I say most definitely yes.
Sliders are Lists of Information
A slider (e.g., like slidejs) is really a list, or array, of information elements. In this case the elements usually consist of a full-bleed background image possibly containing a title, some descriptive copy, and possibly a link/call-to-action. The idea is you ...
5
Let's break down your options:
Always show the 'child' items.
Visual nesting will be important here, using contrast to visually separate the items from the parent and alignment and proximity to visually group them. For example, see, this screenshot from Rally software, and notice how the tasks (TA*) are visually distinct from the stories:
Note that you ...
5
Date of Birth: Pickers for dates of birth are just inappropriate and too cumbersome. Either let the user choose from a series of drop-downs (controversial?) or type the date as free-text (and then validate it for them).
(Tangent: I only mention the drop-down vs. text field issue because, in my experience within a certain context, the former has a ...
5
Consider a search for "javascript visualisation library" on Google. Several promising results:
John Resig's processing.js - you'll probably have to write your specific visualisation yourself
the Javascript InfoVis toolkit - check the demos page for some examples of interactive tree maps, which represent hierarchies as you described in your question
...
5
There are many reasons to avoid the prompt box. There's a good list in this programmers.se answer but here are the reasons it's not helpful:
It's not customizable, full stop. You get to word your prompt and you can't even specify the wording to use for "okay" or "cancel," regardless of whether the prompt is for "Send Email" or "Kill my family". It's also ...
5
One of the golden rules of UX is to never do anything unexpected.
Adding a bit of text to copied text is very much unexpected behaviour, and will definitely lead to frustrated users.
The users will either paste it and hit enter without removing the added text first, which will frustrate them and make them look like an idiot, possibly driving them to ...
5
If you make a distinction between a UI designer and a UI/front end developer, I would expect the latter to be competent with scripting to a decent level but the former not necessarily. If you are designing an interface that someone else will eventually implement and your JavaScript knowledge isn't brilliant, you have a responsibility to chat with a more ...
5
There is probably no "official" icon, because there is no body officially "governing" JavaScript. See also this related Stack Overflow question about the "official" manual on JavaScript. Instead, JavaScript is a derivative of ECMAScript. Glancing over the official ECMAScript website I don't see any official logo's or icons for ECMAScript either, not even in ...
4
Some quick thoughts:
Redesign your UI so that you don't need to load more than N images. For instance, introduce pagination.
Many browsers only render images that are visible to the user. Consider hiding the other images by moving them off-screen or into a div with overflow: hidden or something.
Load the first N images on pageload and then the rest ...
4
To "do it right" you should use the new HTML5 form field attribute "autofocus" (which will work in all browsers supporting HTML5) and use a JS-based shim to progressively add backwards compatibility support to older browsers.
See https://github.com/miketaylr/autofocus for a jQuery snippet that will do the basic job perfectly, and a working demo.
You could ...
4
I would say that if you're going to autofocus, you should also do some kind of clear visual 'notification' that the focus has moved there - change color, fade in a box, flash in an arrow, whatever.
This way, the user isn't surprised when the cursor isn't where they expect it; rather, you show them where it should be, and they find it there.
4
If you want to check for certain JavaScript features you could use a library like Modernizr. You can use it to check for JavaScript, but it might be overkill for the simple check.
A fast soloution would be to use the <noscript> tag.
4
I always get into arguments with designers over this, because I think that JS is a part of the web, and it should be expected if you want to browse cool, modern up to date websites. However, I also accept that sites should probably be browsable without JS, at least at a basic level. So for those who insist on not having JS, the core parts of the site should ...
4
Right clicking on the web is indeed much less used.
Hover should be avoided in my opinion, especially if there any chance this will be used on a mobile device where this isn't possible.
I'd also point out that edit and delete are related actions and in iOS in particular you often click "edit" to reveal a "delete".
Based on the usage frequency of edit ...
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