Mastodawn

Bring Back Idiomatic Design

https://essays.johnloeber.com/p/4-bring-back-idiomatic-design

#4: Bring Back Idiomatic Design

I’m part of the desktop software generation. From Windows 95 to Windows 7, I grew using mostly-offline software on computers operated via mouse and keyboard, well before tablets and smartphones. Recently, I’ve been missing one particular part of that era: its consistency in design. I want to tell you about

Loeber on Substack

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teeray 18h ago

> There are hundreds of ways that different websites ask you to pick dates

Ugh, date pickers. So many of these violently throw up when I try to do the obvious thing: type in the damn date. Instead they force me to click through their inane menu, as if the designer wanted to force me into a showcase of their work. Let your power users type. Just call your user’s attention back to the field if they accidentally typed 03/142/026.

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nkrisc 18h ago

Is 03/04/2026 March 4th or the 3rd of April?

If you have an international audience that’s going to mess someone up.

Better yet require YYYY-MM-DD.

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andai

I've seen some that had a drop-down for the month name. But since it was native, I could type the month name and my browser selected the right one.