Alert message too fast

[lukavdplas]

I've been noticing that toast alerts often disappear when I'm still reading them. (Even though, during development, I usually expect the message to pop up and know what it's about. I would assume an average user has a slower reaction time.) The time limit of 5 seconds is way too tight.

Generally speaking, having auto-disappearing messages like this violates the "enough time" guideline in the WCAG, even if we increase the time limit. Possible solutions:

• Implement this recommendation: "The user is allowed to turn off the time limit before encountering it". The user settings menu would be an obvious place, but not every visitor is logged in. You can store the setting in the browser instead, though this can create a confusing interface with two different settings menus.
• Don't autohide messages at all. As it is, this would quickly fill up the screen with alerts that stick around long after they're relevant. Part of the problem is that the app currently overuses these global alerts, because it's convenient to use a single sink for all messages. Without an autohide system, it often makes more sense to display alerts in the component that generates them, so they "disappear" when you navigate away or complete the action.