Replies: 2 comments
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Hey @CMadden8 thank you so much for writing this RFC down. I believe this is a slightly tricky situation so I'll loop @cdedreuille in for opinions. He's on holiday but will be back shortly. Thanks! |
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Thanks a lot for this RFC. I do agree with you. The
Design wise I think it would be great to explore this further to make sure we improve readability and accessibility of these features. We are doing a lot of updates on the core layout of the manager in preparation for Storybook 8.0 including some key mobile updates. When these are done I would love to explore these further. |
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Status: in-review; championed by @cdedreuille
Summary
This is a feature request to change, or give the option to change, the Storybook toolbar buttons to icons and text, rather than just icons. This suggestion is based on a lot of UX research that states icons-only buttons damages the transparency of the UI. There is good reading on the issue via this article on UX myths. The article also demonstrates how Microsoft benefited from changing their toolbars to icons and text.
Problem Statement
As outlined in the above article, it is very difficult for users to understand/memorise icons-only buttons. I currently find it difficult to know what the buttons are for, unless I hover over them - and even then, the tooltip delay is problematic to efficiently understanding the meaning of buttons.
There's nothing to lose by including the button names, as the toolbars are very slight re: the number of buttons. So space should not be an issue.
Non-goals
No response
Implementation
The proposed solution is to simply include text for all buttons where there is currently only an icon to indicate the button's meaning.
Prior Art
Yes, as mentioned in the above article, Microsoft made the same change to their toolbars and saw huge benefits as a result.
Deliverables
Risks
Real estate issues with more verbose translations. However, the number of buttons involved suggests that this would only be an issue for a mobile view - so there would need to some additional responsiveness added for mobile.
Unresolved Questions
Alternatives considered / Abandoned Ideas
I've seen no alternatives to this suggestion. Generally-speaking, the entire UX world seems to agree that icons-only buttons can only have negative consequences for the user.
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