Dear website designers,

Please stop disabling text selection (highlight) on your websites.

First, it isn't exactly rocket science to bypass;

second, there are people who highlight the paragraphs they are reading.

More of this and I will copy and paste them somewhere else out of spite.

#UX

@ada @cainmark It also stops people from selecting words to look up definitions, or copy-and-pasting quotes, or selecting text to be translated into a user’s native language.

It’s actively hostile, and I’ll remember to blacklist that site.

@ada why do they even do it, tho? like, what benefit could there be to doing that?

@Reiddragon @ada preventing people from copying the contents. that’s it

@ada very much agree.

Even worse is when you go to highlight some text (eg, a part number or specification), and you get hit with a popup going on about "we have the lowest prices, guaranteed".

First, I don't trust that you do. Second, I need to research part compatibility independently, because your company has prioritized shitty UX over providing accurate information.

@ada I often see this with expandable headings. I think it's because those are implemented as buttons?

@ada

I'm curious. Do you know why they do this?

When I find this I used to assume it's a glitch, or maybe because I'm using a phone, or something similarly innocuous because I don't understand the point.

Absolutely annoying and seemingly counterproductive.

@ada it's wild how a lot of ux sins require so much work to commit too

Like you have to actively put work into breaking this shit.

@ada it also doesn't stop thjose of us using screenreaders for even a femtosecond, since our highlight is in a virtual buffer

@ada addendum: also don't add "functionality" when people select text, such as share buttons and the like, for the exact same reason 😒

Sites that block the right click action when I shift-right click

@ada I will sue you for copyright infringement if you try to copy my posts \s

@nay @ada and how does it stop it, I can just peek at the HTML

@Reiddragon @ada that’s the fun part!

@nay @ada ofh...

@nay @ada I actually ran into this with images a bunch and every time I could just right click -> inspect element then midclick on the image link

@freya @ada "femtosecond" is an interesting time measurement

@ada This anti-feature should really just not exist in web browsers. What legitimate use is there for disabling text selection?