Jumping tag selection

Contribute UX

AI-generated summary

The user, amundo, praises Discourse’s tagging functionality but points out a usability issue with the tag selection interface. When typing a tag, the autocomplete possibilities initially appear above the input field, but as more characters are typed, the interface jumps to below the input field, causing confusion and loss of focus. The user suggests a more consistent approach, where the autocomplete dropdown always appears above the input field, to avoid this issue and improve the user experience.

1

The tagging functionality in Discourse is le :bomb: .

An ickle nitpick: the way the tag selection interface jumps from top to bottom is really weird and disorienting. Example: I’m trying to type the tag javascript, so I type j, and I see this:

Screen Shot 2021-07-09 at 10.37.26 AM
Screen Shot 2021-07-09 at 10.37.26 AM774×704 14.4 KB

The autocomplete possibilities (which are awesome) are above the input field. Cool. Okay, now I type a, and I get this:

Screen Shot 2021-07-09 at 10.33.35 AM
Screen Shot 2021-07-09 at 10.33.35 AM834×432 7.53 KB

Now the interface has jumped below the input, presumably because it fits now. I can understand the utility of adapting to available space, and the amount of difficult code that must have been written to make that happen. But as ux, it’s pretty confusing.

  • Everything suddenly moves, and focus is lost (“Wait, where was I typing again?”)
  • The label optional tags looks to me like a placeholder, like it’s a text input. Given the fact that everything has moved, I often click on that to try to “keep editing”. Now the autocomplete drop-down closes.

It seems to me that it would be clearer and more consistent if the autocomplete never jumped below the input (the editor sticks to the bottom anyway, so it makes more sense for that to be the default since there’s more room above.)

:pray: thanks for reading & thanks for discourse

2 Likes