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Image caption field maximum length - misleading UX
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Description

Please change the max length on the image caption field to 250 characters.

Original description
I've found that the "Add image caption" field has a given maximum length of 90 characters, but it's possible to add descriptions longer than this limit (e.g. yesterday I added this caption which is 190 characters long.

Event Timeline

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The 90-character limit is merely a suggestion, and not a hard limit. There will surely be images that can't be adequately described in fewer than 90 characters.

But what is the point in having that number displayed like that if it's not a limit but a suggestion? Moreover, there is nothing that tells the user that is a suggestion, and when the user uses more than 90 characters che field turns red.

Charlotte renamed this task from Image caption field maximum length broken to Image caption field maximum length - misleading UX.Sep 9 2019, 9:14 AM
Charlotte reopened this task as Open.
Charlotte edited projects, added UX-Debt; removed Android-app-Bugs.

As @Nnvu mentions, the user experience is misleading, giving the impression that the 90-character length is meant to be a hard limit rather than a suggestion. This is something @schoenbaechler can consider revising during our polish phase coming up.

Hey @MarkTraceur - is the server limit for caption length 250 characters or 250 bytes?

@Ramsey-WMF - Can you tell us (or ask someone to tell us) whether the server limit for caption length is 250 characters or 250 bytes (or some other number) so that we can fix this UX issue? Cheers!

I believe Wikibase doesn't allow labels longer than 250 *characters*, but will defer to @matthiasmullie for the definitive answer

Hi @Charlotte

Since the article description and image caption are sharing the same input field component, would it be possible to set both of the input fields' max length to 250 characters? It also saves lots of code and more consistent.

@cooltey - Yes, go ahead. The Wikidata FAQ says descriptions should be 2-12 words, so 250 characters will definitely be sufficient.