> Material Design v1
I think it was the worst one. At least from an interoperability perspective: sure, a giant floating "+" in a circle in notes app on a mobile device is alright CTA to add a new note, but on anything bigger than that (even an iPad screen) it's bad.
Apps and websites using it felt like "Work in Progress, we will style it later" except there was no later it was already styled and was just ugly.
> sure, a giant floating "+" in a circle in notes app on a mobile device is alright CTA to add a new note
No, it’s not, because it floats over the actual content, which means that the user can neither see nor interact with the content under it. Of course, no one carefully designs the rest of the UI to make sure that content doesn’t get stuck under the floating button.
> No, it’s not, because it floats over the actual content, which means that the user can neither see nor interact with the content under it.
1. How narrow is your screen? The FAB is typically used over scrollable full-width list items.
2. Using a design system does not release the app author from their UX duties, like making sure the UI works as best as possible.
It’s remarkably common for some floating UI element to obscure the bottom portion of something scrollable. You can’t work around this by scrolling because, if the region in question is on the screen at all, it’s at the bottom.
Even Mobile Safari messes this up on occasion — sometimes the URL bar at the bottom obscures the bottom of a page, and, while one can temporarily reveal it by dragging up, the content rubber-bands right back down when the user lets go.
As much as I generally like MDv1: I hate those floating buttons with a passion.
They can occasionally work. But the vast majority of the time they simply get in the way and can't be hidden, because you're in a content-edge-case that doesn't scroll far enough, or you simply reached the end and they didn't leave after-end padding to make room for it. And very few actions are so important that you want to display it over everything else, for the same reasons that everyone recommends against popups.
Just put it in the freaking toolbar. Top or bottom, I don't care.