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  • Diana K. Bergeydbergey@mastodon.social
    Mar 10, 2026, 6:32 PM

    To address two potential objections I ran across:

    1. "Disabled buttons have poor contrast and are bad for accessibility" Redesign them!
    2. "People don't know why the button is disabled" Tell them!

    (These are design problems that should be solved whether or not the button is disabled.)

    #uxdesign #ux

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Replies

  • GravePapayagravepapaya@tiggi.es
    Mar 10, 2026, 7:26 PM

    @dbergey one consideration to keep in mind is that knowing whether to disable or hide a button can be expensive depending on the permissions system behind it. This doesn't make it good design to not resolve until the button is pressed, but it can make it a very expensive or essentially unachievable design requirement to add.

    Of course if your button ends up being disabled incorrectly (because someone tried to implement it and failed due to the auth system complexities), then it's bad. But from design in the abstract I agree that showing before the action is much better.

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  • Diana K. Bergeydbergey@mastodon.social
    Mar 10, 2026, 7:31 PM

    @gravepapaya Oh for sure. The backend systems should always be doing the permissions check anyway, but if you HAVE the ability to indicate information ahead of time, you should (practical realities of shipping software notwithstanding).

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