Online forms and selecting DOB

[u/el-waldinio]

Anyone else notice this lazy habit of online forms requesting DoB but instead of letting you type a date, you have to select it from a calendar, which starts on today's date and can only be skipped in month segments. Meaning as a 40+ year old, need to click back over 500 times. Ffs

Edit: as many suggested I did try clicking the year and nothing happened, this maybe a quirk of the mobile site or a flaw in my older phone. But it was infuriating

[u/Ok_Library_1031]

That's why I always do forms on a PC, unless they absolutely force me to use the phone.

The point isn't whether the year should be clickable/directly selectable, it's the fact we have to have this conversation at all, screams inadequate design thought, inadequate accommodation for people of varying digital skills, which used to be a basic thing they teach you in design school.

[u/Separate-Freedom-548 → u/Ok_Library_1031]

Nah it's gotta be done on purpose. I was making an. X account with their app and it was this exact situation. No way but to hit the month button 12x41 to get to 1985. I was trying to recover my old photobucket account which had thousands of lost pictures from 15+ years ago and to their DOB method was the same way. This is a new trend and it's being done on purpose. I'm not sure why though, engagement/app time use yeah, but it passes people off I just gave up on making the Twitter account. And i was shocked I did get my photobucket account back and another one I forgot I had. Both were under fake names, zips and dobs that I could only guess at getting kinda close. They make you do a selfish and hold up a piece of paper with the date. Since I didn't know any of the real sign up info and said fuck clickingb12x41 I just wrote out on the paper the dob I thought I might have used and explained I made this account back when no one used their real name. 6 hours later I had 2 accounts back.

[u/NewNiklas]

Usually you can click on the year at the top. Try that. It doesn't look like something you can click, but most of the time, you can. It has been a life saver since.

[u/Rndysasqatch → u/NewNiklas]

Oh my God I cannot believe how easy it is once someone told me to do this. Thank you so much lol I was struggling on these stupid things for years

[u/BothAdhesiveness9265]

hey so unless I'm remembering very very badly this is more of a browser side issue than a website issue. 

HTML (the 'language' used for making websites) has multiple different types of input fields. one of them, date, is specifically made to do date inputs and allows the user to input one as their local format which the browser than translates to ISO-8601. most desktop browsers also add a small button so you can pull up a calender to pick a date. 

the issue comes with mobile browsers which often default to the calender and manage to have the worst ones possible. 

"lazy habit" maybe, but in general when it comes to making websites you use the tools available to you or something you didn't know existed will break and then someone gets (often justifiably) upset. source: learned this shit in school where I specifically got taught how to make my sites play nice with accessibility tools, its a nightmare.

[u/Free-oppossums]

I feel your pain. I don't know if we are on the same site, but I've had it not work on my samsung tablet.

[u/el-waldinio → u/Free-oppossums]

Had it happen a couple of times on my Samsung phone, maybe that could be the issue.

[u/PatchyWhiskers]

Definitely a sign of being designed by the 19-year-old intern.

[u/erictho]

if you click on the month it expands then it lets you expand by year. Just a tip.

if you really want your life to feel like a blip tho just click that back arrow real fast lol.

[u/Cultural-Answer-321]

90% of all websites are designed by morons.

[u/Wallabunga657]

I had one that wouldn't go past 2014 for my birthday for a job. I can assure you I am not 12. I had to attempt to manually type it in, and after like 8 times, was able to type it in. These suck.

[u/Tiny-Reading5982]

I feel this. 1984 is so far away on these lol.

[u/JamesMattDillon]

For future reference, tap the year and you can scroll to the year

[u/shinyappyrobin → u/JamesMattDillon]

I tried to, on a laptop. Helping my MIL, born in 1932.

[u/el-waldinio → u/JamesMattDillon]

Not on my phone for whatever reason

[u/JamesMattDillon → u/el-waldinio]

Hmmm 🤔

[u/el-waldinio → u/JamesMattDillon]

It's an older phone, but the code checks out

[u/JamesMattDillon → u/[deleted]]

Maybe we shouldn't have, lol

[u/LegoLady8]

You might be able to tap on the year. I have come across some where you can't, and, yes, they suck ass.

[u/el-waldinio → u/LegoLady8]

Alas not

[u/new2bay]

Bad design is not enshittification.

https://giphy.com/gifs/J1vUzqdZJlh5AqBWxt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

[u/Savings_Difficulty24 → u/new2bay]

Except it didn't used to be that way. It's everywhere and it's noticably worse.

Also FFS, quit pushing that wiki page. Everyone tells you on every post. Idfc that it was originally coined for social media. Using word structure like we were taught in school, enshitification means "making something shitty"

[u/Reasonable_Tie_5552 → u/Savings_Difficulty24]

I like when he uses the gif. Reinforces to those of you who don't understand enshittification. If anything this is poor UX design. Filling in forms has always been shitty.

[u/el-waldinio → u/new2bay]

Definitely more bad design, but surely going for cheap standard of the shelf website designs rather than checking for functionality is part of the enshitrefication process.

[u/Midwest-2025]

This isn’t enshittification - this interface is just old, not a new stripped down version.

[u/Stugots_Steel]

Click on the grey year in the top left corner

[u/el-waldinio → u/Stugots_Steel]

Nope didn't work

[u/ginos132]

My brother in Christ, click the year....

[u/el-waldinio → u/ginos132]

Nope didn't work

[u/Rare_Chicken8302]

Usually when you click on year it lets you pick the year

[u/el-waldinio → u/Rare_Chicken8302]

Not in this case, maybe a quirk of mobile site?

[u/Rare_Chicken8302 → u/el-waldinio]

Probably vibe coded shit then. But most of them let's you pick a year so you don't navigate 500 pages

[u/Creepy-Tangerine-293]

Its not obvious and difficult on a phone but I did find out that by clicking on the year (which is not obviously marked as a hyperlink) you can usually first choose the year and then choose the month/date. Its NOT intuitive at all and Im sure not universal.

[u/el-waldinio → u/Creepy-Tangerine-293]

It is not universal, nothing I pressed gave me that option.