LiveJournal Edit Tags page

[sophie]

I wouldn't normally put an LJ fail in here, but this one is so outrageous that I feel I have to, and it's the result of a deliberate design decision.

If you have a LiveJournal, try going to one of your entries and clicking to edit the tags on that entry (that is, using the specific Edit Tags screen, not the generic Edit Entry screen). Then try to select tags to use.

It looks like they tried to make it easier for mouse users by making it so that you can click a tag and have the others remain selected when you do so. But since it's a listbox, it normally would clear the rest of the listbox selection when you do this. So it seems that they made it so that it remembers the items that were selected before, so that when a new item is selected, they then rebuild the selections in the list box based on what the previous selections were.

But if use the keyboard instead of the mouse, you're screwed. Just try to navigate that thing with a keyboard without accidentally selecting or deselecting tags that you didn't want to select or deselect. (I haven't tried any other means of input, so I can't comment on those.) At least it doesn't auto-save, so you can just close the window when you realise that it's pointless.

(I suspect that the page causes problems for people on any OS that doesn't automatically clear the rest of the listbox when you click an item.)

Comments

[codeman38]

Um. Wow. This reminds me of those puzzles where the surrounding bulbs light up whenever you click on a lightbulb.

Even more fun, it also breaks the behavior using Ctrl+arrows and space, the normal way of selecting multiple items! Now if you do that, it will do the opposite of what it's supposed to, and deselect all the other tags when you select a new one using the space bar.

Is there a place to report accessibility issues on LJ other than the general help system?

[codeman38]

I've filed a support request. No idea if anyone will actually respond to it, though.

http://www.livejournal.com/support/see_request.bml?id=1153428

[sophie]

Support is done by volunteers; I used to be one. You'll get a response.

[mathsnerd]

I'm a keyboard/mouse user, but I have serious disability issues with my hands - a combination of braces and seriously reduced motor skills and lack of sensation and such - and I can*not* use that page whatsoever. It's simply not accessible for me. Quite frustrating.

[jadelennox]

oh, yes. This is one of the things which has made me stop caring what my tags are on LiveJournal. It's just too difficult to manage them now! Drives me around the bend.

To be fair, not the tag management is a thing of accessibility wine and roses on dreamwidth, either.

[sophie]

Yeah. Really, we should be using checkboxes here. I might see if I can do something about that.

[pauamma]

I think that lynx (the browser) has a "render multiple-selection lists as array of checkboxes" option.