I agree, the site visuals and short messages doesn’t explain well why they are bad.
I’ll try to fill that gap.
Modals switch the application normal mode to get your attention. So they interrupt your “flow”.
Most of the reasons to use them could be resolved by other means, that are better in terms of UX but requires more work in both design and implementation:
- Confirmation modals can be substituted with auto-save, undo, and restore, but is more complex to implement.
- Modals to show more info can be resolved with progressive disclosure or by improving the information architecture.
However, like with many design choices there are cases where modals are a good option. For example, for certain confirmations and navigation the advantage of the modal is that the backdrop makes clear where do you go after dismissing the modal (bottom sheets in mobile are a example).
Another reason why modals get a bad rep is that they have all sorts of implementation issues in web, and in the desktop the mode change for a window is not prominent (macOS solves that with sheets, but Windows still has that problem)
I’ll try to fill that gap.
Modals switch the application normal mode to get your attention. So they interrupt your “flow”.
Most of the reasons to use them could be resolved by other means, that are better in terms of UX but requires more work in both design and implementation:
- Confirmation modals can be substituted with auto-save, undo, and restore, but is more complex to implement.
- Modals to show more info can be resolved with progressive disclosure or by improving the information architecture.
However, like with many design choices there are cases where modals are a good option. For example, for certain confirmations and navigation the advantage of the modal is that the backdrop makes clear where do you go after dismissing the modal (bottom sheets in mobile are a example).
Another reason why modals get a bad rep is that they have all sorts of implementation issues in web, and in the desktop the mode change for a window is not prominent (macOS solves that with sheets, but Windows still has that problem)