# Category Reordering UX could be simpler **URL:** \ **Category:** UX\ **Tags:** pr-welcome\ **Created:** [March 16, 2018, 8:17pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-reordering-ux-could-be-simpler/83171 "2018-03-16T20:17:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 6
**Author:** ![awesomerobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/awesomerobot/32/142900_2.png) [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2018, 3:05pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-reordering-ux-could-be-simpler/83171/6 "2018-03-19T15:05:27Z")
> [@BlackKnob](#): > > OTOH, typing numbers to move a list item feels like MS-DOS era. How about drag-and-drop and a move-to-top button? If it works it works, regardless what era it feels like it’s from. Drag-and-drop and move-to-top as a replacement remove functionality… we’re making the UI less specific and requiring more steps for certain tasks. What if I want to move item 50 to position 10? I either drag past 40 other items and hope I don’t mess up (which can cause me to have to start the process all over again), or I have to click “move to top” and then drag. It’s less exact and requires at least 2 clicks if I’m doing everything perfectly. If we call for the numeric keypad on mobile (which we’re not at the moment), tapping an input and typing 10 seems at least as fast and less prone to error. > [@BlackKnob](#): > > There’s also a question of smart phone compatibility, where drag-and-drop beats any numerical input. I _strongly_ disagree that this is universally true. It depends on the circumstances. The longer a list gets, the more difficult drag-and-drop becomes to use. It’s a fringy but not completely uncommon for sites to have more than a _hundred_ categories. Drag-and-drop _only_ would make category reordering a nightmare for them. > [@erlend\_sh](#): > > just because drag&drop could be problematic in edge cases. I’d argue that’s it’s not problematic, but almost completely broken if it’s the only option for sites with large numbers of categories. I’m not completely opposed to drag-and-drop, we just can’t sacrifice numerical input along with it. I don’t think it would be a problem to eliminate the up/down arrows for drag-and-drop, in most cases drag-and-drop is probably nicer than clicking an arrow over and over again. > [@erlend\_sh](#): > > Furthermore, one of the biggest shortcomings of our current re-ordering interface is that it treats sub-categories as independent instead of being in fact a child of a parent category. Totally agree. --- _[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-reordering-ux-could-be-simpler/83171)._