Re:Uniform - Sexy forms with jQuery
by henrikschroder on Wednesday February 10, 2010 @07:18AM
(#1114682)
Have you ever wished you could style checkboxes, drop down menus, radio buttons, and file upload inputs? Ever wished you could control the look and feel of your form elements between all browsers?
No, because that is generally bad usability design. It's not quite as bad as the ultimate atrocity: making your own scrollbars, but changing the feel of widgets is bad, because it only makes it harder for people to manipulate them. It's ok to change the look if you are careful to preserve the feel and functionality.
A quick test of that example shows it's lacking visual indication of focus. I can still move between them and manipulate them with tab and space and arrow keys, but I don't know where I am. If that's just part of the theme, fine, but if the framework lacks support for it, not so fine.
On the other hand, I hope this library (or similar) becomes very popular among those that absolutely have to change widgets, because then you can address the usability issues in the library. If everyone rolls their own, you will end up with quite a few usability horrors.
No, because that is generally bad usability design. It's not quite as bad as the ultimate atrocity: making your own scrollbars, but changing the feel of widgets is bad, because it only makes it harder for people to manipulate them. It's ok to change the look if you are careful to preserve the feel and functionality.
A quick test of that example shows it's lacking visual indication of focus. I can still move between them and manipulate them with tab and space and arrow keys, but I don't know where I am. If that's just part of the theme, fine, but if the framework lacks support for it, not so fine.
On the other hand, I hope this library (or similar) becomes very popular among those that absolutely have to change widgets, because then you can address the usability issues in the library. If everyone rolls their own, you will end up with quite a few usability horrors.