[Spivak]

We’re saying the same thing. The web’s current tools requires devs to reimplement all that functionality from scratch, which isn’t gonna happen, when the ideal solution would be to start with the battle tested native control and then tweak from there to fit the design.

[ryandrake]

But, once you tweak it, it is no longer the same "battle tested" thing. Even little tweaks. App developers should do themselves a favor and just stick to the standard controls that have decades, maybe centuries of tester-time working out the kinks and edge cases. A medium-size company's UX expert's "restyling tweaks" are unlikely to make the control better.

[tibbar]

This position doesn't make sense to me. Certain customizations to the native control (which is the ask here) are already available, such as adding padding to input controls, increasing the font size, changing the width. You can even change the border color and the border radius and the background color for some controls! Some of these turn out to be necessary functional changes, and some of them -- imma say it -- are obvious and important adjustments so that your app looks consistent and everything lines up properly.

To think that there's no room for variation in the design of form controls, given the broader context of a design system for app, is just a lack of imagination. I guarantee you that the people who design the operating system form controls (which change every couple years) have all sorts of ideas, and they end putting out one possible, relatively minimal option from many good designs they considered.

[kaba0]

Please have a look at any OOP desktop framework from like the past 3 decades. It is not a difficult concept — one is free to overload the render function, while the functionality will remain the very same, like getting focus with tab, activate to space, whatever.

[Nextgrid]

My point is that by tweaking the looks of the existing thing you are breaking standards users are used to or might be causing issues you're not even aware of (bad color choices for colorblind people for example) even if the behavior/functionality of the control is unchanged.

[tibbar]

I think this is an important concern, but not a disqualifying one. There is already a lot of variety in the space of controls, for example compare browser controls to the Office Suite to native OS, it's a big spectrum. When controls are customized correctly they become more usable within the context of the app because they are sized consistently, line up with the content grid, follow visual cues from the rest of the app, etc.

[johnisgood]

Maybe you can introduce smaller changes over a longer period of time? I dunno. Would not Windows users be stuck with that very old look if there were no changes? I mean, is this actually what you are favoring? That said, I cannot stand the trend of UI/UX on desktop being so touch-friendly, along with more padding and/or increased font sizes and less content, too.