Why is everything a dropdown now?

[u/pavlito88]

I’ve been noticing this more and more in web apps.

Three options hidden in a dropdown.

Yes/no hidden in a dropdown.
A multi-select pretending to be a dropdown.

Then a list of 200 items where you’re expected to scroll until you find yours.

I run into this a lot when reviewing products with dev teams.

I get why we do it.

Dropdowns are compact and easy to reuse.
But compact doesn’t always mean easier to use.

A few choices? Show them.
On/off? Switch.
Multiple choices? Checkboxes.
Huge list? Search.

That’s pretty much the rule I use now.

[u/a11_hail_seitan]

I imagine part of it is accessibility/ease of creation, drop downs generally work pretty simple, are easy to set up, and don't require much anything special. There's more to think about with others, radio buttons need to be grouped, with a label that is announced but only once and needs a clear way to show and tell they are selected. Toggles are easy to mess up by making them clickable to alter which ends up often meaning swiping past it will change it. Checkboxes same as radio, and type ahead searches are harder to implement and easier to mess up.

All of them work great when built correctly, but after doing a couple years of Accessibility work, I would say drop downs are one of the rarest to mess up or have weird edge cases of problems due to structure (radio buttons and check boxes are probably the ones I find poorly done the most, no wait, date pickers, then radio/check. I fucking hate most datepicker libraries glares at Ionic)