Comment by streptomycin
2 days ago
I use it in one place in my app, and even with me putting text right above it saying something like "ctrl+click to select multiple entries", I still periodically get emails from confused users. No idea what the actual % is, but it's gotta be some non-trivial fraction of people who just have no idea how to use that thing.
The thing is, this is a catch-22 problem: if everyone used the default multiple select, people would know how to operate it (and they’d be able to transfer their knowledge from how the control works elsewhere in their os to the web: for example, if you know how to select multiple files in Finder, Windows Explorer or in a open file dialog, it works exactly the same way in the multiple select control). But, because web developers have decided to invent a 1,001 different multiple selects, the default control is inaccessible.
The real issue I have with the web is everyone has broken user interface consistency across the platform with custom web controls where the default controls would be fine.
The trouble with the multiple select is that you have to use it usually when that's what the control is. Users who don't know to control-click can do things like moving files one at a time in the OS, but rarely (never?) is an OS showing you a control like that that makes you use ctrl-click to use it at all, vs. a list of checkboxes or whatever, or contexts like selecting files where you usually can accomplish your goal piecemeal.
I agree that the feature/appearance/accessibility inconsistency you get from reimplementing the controls is a problem, but I think the right way to fix it is to raise that common floor of what the web platform provides. People want, e.g., comboboxes, they've been around forever in UI toolkits, but the web's standard answer for them is still pretty terrible, so it's no surprise that people reach for the libraries that replace the whole thing.