Brian LeRoux 💚Aug 9, 2024

Forms on the web have become terrible. Lost state. No keyboard nav. Weird refreshes. Mobile hostile.

The reason is #frontend developers that think clientside state management is how to implement a form. It is not.

Good forms work without client #javascript (and then are progressive enhanced by js to work even better).

Good forms always submit. Good forms remember values and display problems inline.

How do we fix the misconceptions and, in the process, fix the forms on the web ?

Show threadIan
@brianleroux This is a sweeping claim that I haven't witnessed. I've seen the _occasional_ form the way you describe. In all cases it wasn't frontend devs who were the problem, they understand how to make forms. Instead, it was "enterprise" devs implementing some waterfall requirements (eg: "no pasting in a password field") without understanding the tech.
Aug 9, 2024 at 6:24pmWeb
Show threadBrian LeRoux 💚Aug 10, 2024

@soviut it happens to me daily. Banks. Hotels. Airlines. Medical clinic. Grocery order.

Critical stuff. Being let down because devs don't know how forms work truly.

Show threadIanAug 10, 2024

@brianleroux Banks are usually the ones I see being poorly developed by said "enterprise" developers. They lack any knowledge of browsers or frontend. I once spoke with a dev who worked for the bank I use and I complained about the 8 character limit on passwords at the time; he argued it was entropically fine.

All the frontend devs I know are intimately familiar with forms. If they're not, they aren't really frontend devs; they're just devs who happen to be writing frontend code at the moment.