| ▲ | Building a Toast Component(emilkowal.ski) |
| 88 points by FragrantRiver 4 days ago | 32 comments |
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| ▲ | robin_reala 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Meanwhile, GitHub is removing Toasts from Primer, their design system.[1] They’re next to impossible to implement in a way that retains accessibility across all needs, and if you try to restrict their usage to places where accessibility doesn’t matter so much (simple ephemeral confirmations) people misuse them anyway. It’s notable that accessibility isn’t mentioned once in this post, or, in fact, in the component’s documentation. [1] https://primer.style/accessibility/toasts/ |
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| ▲ | samsolomon 21 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | I’m the design leader for an enterprise software company and would love to get rid of toasts. Places where feedback is immediate don’t need them and simple forms can probably be fine with a banner or alert. Why toasts are useful: - Easy for developers to implement consistently. - Providing feedback where actions are taken on elements not on the screen (like bulk actions on a data grid, or within our workflow). | |
| ▲ | CharlesW 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > It’s notable that accessibility isn’t mentioned once in this post, or, in fact, in the component’s documentation. It's a red flag for sure. That said, there's nothing preventing toasts from being accessible: https://react-spectrum.adobe.com/react-aria/useToast.html I think it would be accurate for GitHub to say, "GitHub no longer uses toasts because we didn't want to make the effort to make them accessible or usable." | | |
| ▲ | robin_reala 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Spectrum’s Toast docs don’t mention how they make Toasts accessible with screen magnifiers (more widely used than screen readers based on the last WebAIM surveys I saw), so I guess they didn’t consider them? | |
| ▲ | thunderfork 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think that toasts are kind of an attractive nuisance when it comes to accessibility. They can technically, with ample constraints and a great deal of restraint, maybe end up complying with WCAG, etc., but all it takes is one developer saying "well a toast is easy" or "this isn't that important, make it auto-dismiss" and you're back in bad pattern town. You see this with government web design systems - they have a very limited and constrained palette of patterns, because it allows for more consistency and reliable accessibility, versus having a bunch of tools that you just generally shouldn't use. (The GitHub page linked above also makes a great case for how "making toasts accessible" isn't as simple as just having the right aria roles - lots of details the Adobe design doesn't seem to completely cover, unfortunately) |
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| ▲ | toddmorey an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | When async notifications arrive from background processes… How is the user notified? (Not defending toasts, just curious how to do it better.) | | |
| ▲ | toddmorey an hour ago | parent [-] | | GitHub seems to suggest banners or “Also consider ways to notify the user in other communication channels such as email, notifications, or a push notification in the GitHub app.” On MacOS… emails and push notifications create… toast messages |
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| ▲ | chipheat 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Not too hopeful with accessibility, as it isn't pleasant to use at all with reduced motion enabled. They flicker when added and linger around when swiped away. |
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| ▲ | jmercouris 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Toasts are a great way to lose information. They are a terrible design and should not be used. They distract the user, are not dense with information, and provide no value. If a message is important enough for the user to read, it should be a dialog box. |
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| ▲ | jopicornell 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Dialogs are a great way to lose information. They are often dismissed by users that want to do their job and are interrupted by modals. Users focused on their tasks blindly dismiss dialogs. Read the above as a critique to your strong opinion and not an opinion of mine. My opinion is that toasts are great for notifications that can be reviewed/checked later, like chat notifications or finished background tasks. What should be avoided, just for the same reason as modals/dialogs, is an overuse, causing fatigue. | | |
| ▲ | mhitza 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Dialogs don't have to be modal, and in the parent comments context they aren't. |
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| ▲ | ahallock 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Developers reach for Toasts because they're zero effort. Good user experience takes a lot of thought and you can skip all that with Toasts haha. | | |
| ▲ | robin_reala 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Zero effort, and they animate. Components that have animation baked in are drug-like in how they hook in designers and devs who are only thinking about the visual presentation. |
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| ▲ | oulipo2 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Most of the time they're used for a quick visual confirmation that "your operation went right" | | |
| ▲ | jmercouris 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The information that the user did something "right" should be responsive next to where the user initiated the action- not in a random corner. | | |
| ▲ | nine_k 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | That control may not be visible by the time the operation completes. | | |
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| ▲ | tyre 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That’s why confetti exists |
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| ▲ | varun_ch 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I’m far from a UX designer but whenever I use something with toasts I feel like I don’t notice them pop up in my periphery. I think it would be better if the confirmation for an action I did just showed up wherever I performed that action (like a button changing state to a spinner and then either an error or a confirmation) |
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| ▲ | hungrymagnum 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | This can be applied for a success (change the button to a green tick mark) or an unsuccessful action (change the button to a red x mark). But what if you want to give details on why the action was unsuccessful? How do you show it near the button or change the button itself? |
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| ▲ | nine_k 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > While I’m sacrificing discoverability and clarity, it feels elegant to me Sigh. So much of modern "UX design" seems to be lured by this siren call :( |
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| ▲ | Waterluvian 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Despite being the first point made, i feel that it’s likely the name didn’t contribute to its success, and possibly worked against it. It’s not discoverable and it doesn’t tell the reader much of anything. It’s the kind of name you get away with when your product is established by other means. |
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| ▲ | araes 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Was really hoping it was an article about making electronics out of fried bread products. "With electrodes wired to our margarine covered breadboard we were able to accomplish ... " |
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| ▲ | anilakar 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Scrolling that web site on mobile is really choppy. |
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| ▲ | djbarnwal 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This was a great read! |
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| ▲ | jgalt212 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > It’s now downloaded over 7,000,000 times per week Why do all these packages have so many downloads? Are all the CI / CD routines always downloading a fresh copy and not caching? |
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