Posted by gaele on November 15, 2007 at 9:05pm
This is just a small step towards making forms more usable. I've made a block to toggle the display of field descriptions (the tiny help texts below input fields). The idea is that once you've read them you don't need them anymore, so they just as well could go away. Still it should be easy to get them back instantly, in case you forgot what a field was about.
Please go to http://demo.guruburu.com and check it out. Create an account and try "My account" and "Create content". And tell me below what you think.
A few remarks:
- There are three options to implement this:
- pure javascript. advantage: instant toggle. disadvantage: status is not remembered between pages
- AJAX (the way it is implemented right now). advantage: status remembered within session or even in between sessions (it could be made an option on the user profile page). disadvantage: much slower (especially on Dreamhost ;-)
- toggle using its own cookie. this could be the best of both worlds. I don't know what the guidelines are for using extra cookies, though.
- With descriptions hidden the form looks much cleaner. Still I believe it's too cluttered, especially with fieldsets opened. I guess it's the alignment.
- Without descriptions the form should still be clear. What is your opinion? Are there any field labels that can have better wording?
- Descriptions are just one level of help text. The description toggle hides them but makes them easily available. Here is a discussion about making help pages more easily available.
Comments
i can has screenshots?
pretty please?
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They're on the site mentioned above.
I like the screenshots.
I like the screenshots. Could it just be a menu item rather than a block though?
Great job!
Wonderful, gaele!
This takes us one step further.
Does this toggle button switch off all help texts, or just the ones in the test node?
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Life is a journey, not a destination
All descriptions
The toggle switches off all field descriptions on all pages. Or more specific: all div's with class "description".
(This means it doesn't switch off module descriptions on the /admin page. They have their own toggle button. Perhaps they should be combined.)
And yeah, the button could be a menu item. (Though I believe it wouldn't fit there. It is not a navigation link. It is a utility.)
Combined
I think this is the way to go: one toggle to rule them all, including the admin descriptions.
I like it a lot, but I'm not fond of the block or menu item idea. A better location would be at the top of the content area as it's where the toggle does it's magic.
Also if I disable javascript all I get when I click on the link is a blank page with this text
{ "display": "none", "text": "off" }. I guess you didn't care about the fallback yet as this is a demo, but it'll be needed in the end. The button shouldn't be visible if javascript is not enabled IMO.Edit: I just realized the toggle works with or without javascript on the admin page, so it's probably possible to do the same globally.
elv, those comments all make
elv, those comments all make sense.
Gaele - you should submit this as a patch, with those changes it could still get into D6.
You're right, with
You're right, with javascript disabled the toggle should either not display at all or work just like the one on the admin page (which is: using a page refresh).
The toggle on the admin page works by generating different HTML though. Not sure how to do this in a module.
catch, I might submit this as a patch for D7. We're aiming at D7 for a grand usability update.
Gaele, a bit of more description would be good
Gaele, it would be good, if you put a description on your demo site. This way people could go there directly and read on the site what it's all about. This might help spreading the benifits more widely by making it easier to understand. ;)
Life is a process
Life is a journey, not a destination