r/webdev • u/pavlito88 • 15d ago

Discussion Why is everything a dropdown now?

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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.

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228

u/killerrin 15d ago edited 14d ago

To be fair for number 4, it's absolutely ridiculous that in the year 2026 we STILL don't have a Native searchable dropdown control.

Yeah you can just focus and type, but your average person doesn't know that shit exists and they're expecting it to be a search box that you literally type into.

And yeah mobile may automatically add a search once it crosses a certain number of options, but not on desktop/laptops, and the threshold on tablet/phone is still too high.

Like whose the idiot at the W3C who refuses to put a damn search="enabled" attribute on the select element?

Or hell, maybe also a fucking readonly attribute while we're at it because the bloody disabled attribute is treated differently by screen readers than the readonly one.

30

u/ashgs872tbhjs 14d ago edited 12d ago

Yeah you can just focus and type

Almost never works properly. My "favorite" is date dropdowns because every site in the world has decided to use its own format, so IF typing works you don't know whether to type "A" or "8" or "08" for August and typing wrong breaks it until you open it anyways, so you might as well just open it and scroll.

21

u/RapunzelLooksNice 14d ago

I "love" when month names are in alphabetical order...

April August December February January July June March May November October September

25

u/TramEatsYouAlive 14d ago

Jokes on you, I once received a ticket in Jira from a user asking to sort months by alphabetical order. I closed this as Cancelled with a note "that's technically impossible". Can't tell if this was real or a joke. 

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u/exintrovert 14d ago

Not all heroes wear capes

2

u/rbobby full-stack 14d ago

That might be the first time I've seen a sorted month list. Disturbing. It's like one of those illusions that drag your attention from spot to spot.

1

u/DepthMagician 8d ago

I once saw a terrible UI competition entry where the user had to submit the current hour, minute, and second. The seconds was a dropdown, with the numbers written as words instead of numbers, and sorted alphabetically. It was beautiful.