Goodbye to 8 Design Elements: Dropdown, Carousel, ... | Hacker News Reader

Goodbye to 8 Design Elements: Dropdown, Carousel, ...

uxmag.com

17 pointsnader16 comments

>> Web Pages

First of all I wouldn't classify a web page as a design element. Secondly they aren't going anywhere. There are valid reasons for lots of sites to switch to an app approach but web pages are still very useful and I don't see that changing.

No, it's great to load a multi-megabyte page full of Javascript for your application-oriented website, in particular when you are looking for reading a few (kilo-)bytes. I think every website should be growing towards an application with some splash logo. Alas, there will be some point where browsers cannot have a nice downloading interface for the application. It can be easily solved by having the user download a download manager application. It will be so user-friendly!

To be even more effective, you can make it so that the application is only loaded once and the data is be retrieved when needed, optimizing the use of the network. I would go even farther: I think that, at some point, a lot of applications will be using a common base for retrieving and displaying the data from the network. It may be a little avant-guarde, but it would be great to have a single application that would handle the content from all application. I know it's just science-fiction, but wouldn't that be great?

The only thing in the list that's a "design element" is the drop down and the Carousel.

Statements about shared hosting are full of misconceptions.

- "colo" is not really about sharing a server but about being in the same data center.

- cloud is almost by definition a "shared-resources" hosting: you run a VM on a physical server that is shared with others VMs, therefore you are still subject to noisy neighbors.

- shared hosting is not only about resources but also about services and ease of use.

I see misconceptions and shortcuts for every point in the article, I hope it won't stay long on the frontpage.

If enough people flag it, we can get rid of it very quickly.

Web Pages are going away?

Aside from the fact that we haven't figured out the SEO yet ( see https://sourcegraph.com/blog/switching-from-angularjs-to-ser... ), encouraging the unwashed masses to "appify" their content is tantamount to malpractice IMO.

A carousel is a stupid design element, mostly used as a way for a product manager to avoid having to choose between all their brilliant ideas.

Every time I've done analytics on a carousel (say a carousel with 3 choices, A, B and C), I run a test: A vs B vs C vs Carousel(A,B,C). The Carousel has never won.

There is a very simple reason why. The user doesn't see "oh cool, a carousel, let me wait for it to spin around." They see A, B or C at random. As a result, their conversion rate is the average of the conversion rates of A, B and C.

Clusters of buttons are on the way out. Hamburgers everywhere.

Supporting multiple browsers... gone! If it works in Chrome... done.

Responsive design? Gone! We're post-PC now. Design for Android phones only.

Design? Boom! Gone. Text only. Chrome gets in the way.

Color? Clutter. Let the user choose their system palette. Green text on black by default.

Boom. Sorted.

Is the drop down menu really going anywhere? I consider the mobile 'hamburger' to just be an evolution of the drop down, rather than something completely new.

His point was not about drop-downs at all (he's mistaking design patterns for interactive models)... but rather that 'mouse-over' design models don't work in a mouse and touch world.

Mouse-over to reveal functionality doesn't work for touch.

There's plenty more wrong with this article, but I thought I'd clear up this particular piss-poor communication item.

I think he really meant "accordeon"?

> 1. The Drop-Down Menu

Don't (some) mobile devices trigger :hover states when elements are tapped on? If they don't, surely there's JS to fix that; and then users with a mouse can enjoy their agility, while mobile users have to make an extra tap. And you'll be happy to not have simply thrown it all away, too, when pixel-perfect gaze tracking finally gets invented.

> 6. Web Pages

Hang on there. The ability to bookmark and share links to individual sections is super important, it's what makes "Hyper Text" "hyper". "go to URL and then do X, Y and Z" won't fly, neither will being unable to restart your browser and continuing where you left off. But if you update the URL to reflect that current state, you kind of still have web pages, you see? It doesn't matter how shiny they are or how you transition them, they'll still be web pages. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

We already had Flash, long before Javascript could do much, and we already had attempts at quite elaborate and artistic websites, complete with intro and sections folding and fading and morphing - and even the good ones sucked from a "web" perspective. Good for viral marketing, annoying or even useless for extended use.

Silly article. But carousels still need to suffer for their iniquities.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong but the article seems to suggest a false dilemma between using shared hosting and PaaS while disregarding the VPS option, which is on the rise as well. It's hardly a design element, too, expect in the broadest sense possible.

Deleted comment

By any chance are you above 40?

I wouldn't be so quick to judge somebody by their hobbies. How about judging him based on his work? http://www.asheavenue.com/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com