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Scrollbar Blindness

svenkadak.com

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Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#101

Post by missblit »

dusted wrote: post #14
dgellow wrote: post #12

Another one of such thing: please try to scroll on your site using a mouse wheel from time to time, even if you're normally using a touchpad (from your laptop or an external one)! Lot of fancy homepage with scroll animations are awful on anything that isn't scrolling as smoothly as a MacBookPro touchpad. Example: https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/ is horrible to use on anything that isn't a mobile device or a Mac.

yes, that's pretty terrible, I always scroll with the mouse wheel, since I'm tool old to be rubbing a plate of glass and not feel like a moron. But this one, made my finger hurt a bit and I din't even make it half way down.

I have a "Mitsumi Standard Scroll" mouse that has a scroll button that you can hold down instead of a wheel that you have to keep spinning.

It's so much easier on the fingers that I'm amazed I haven't been able to find it anywhere else.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#102

Post by vbsteven »

jakub_g wrote: post #71

If you read between the lines, you should understand that the root cause of issue is the macOS developer monoculture. All you need is one Windows or Linux-based developer in your team to catch those kind of issues. But so many dev teams are macOS-only those days, whereas, apart from US and 2-3 other rich countries, 80%+ or even more of actual desktop users are Windows-based. (There are many other problems with macOS…

I think the macOS monoculture is going to go away in the next few years because on one side macOS is becoming more and more developer hostile with each release and on the other side WSL (and WSL2) is improving the Windows developer experience a lot.

I use Windows as my daily driver OS now for both native/web/mobile/devops work and I expect to see more and more developers making that same switch in the coming years.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#103

Post by Hizonner »

Santosh83 wrote: post #25

Increasingly many sites are opting for overlay scrollbars that are exceedingly difficult to actually use. It's almost as if they don't want you to use the scrollbar yet provide one for compliance. They are often very thin (just a few pixels) and coloured dark gray upon black background and won't expand to a bigger size until you successfully squint and hunt it down and precisely position the pointer over it.

That's because the "designers" don't give a shit about the users' actual needs. They just want the thing to be pretty. They'll also fuck with it every once in a while, making random pointless changes, just to keep the look "fresh". Way too many artistes can easily sneak onto your UX staff.

Also watch out for people from marketing and the like who put pressure on the UX people to do that sort of thing. People who don't actually know how to make anything work, and don't have to actually use it to get work done, tend to be obsessed with how it looks.

A few casual users who don't actually need to get anything done will usually support this kind of time-wasting idiocy, and the offenders will point to their feedback for validation. Unfortunately people who write reviews are often in that category, since they rarely make practical use of what they're reviewing.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#104

Post by MaxBarraclough »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #45
abledon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the designers of the systems , after becoming so bored with the status quo, begin to fetishize the sleek hidden thing that is scroll bar right now ... like when coders are writing algorithms for say, 10-15 years I bet their code gets a lot more compact and sleek looking , almost akin to tight 3 character variable leet code solutions etc.. maybe this is just the same phenomenon tearing its head in the desi…

> like when coders are writing algorithms for say, 10-15 years I bet their code gets a lot more compact and sleek looking , almost akin to tight 3 character variable leet code solutions I have never seen that to be the case unless in an environment with very heavy constraints like embedded. If anything, a competent programmer 10-15 years in would skew towards more descriptive and clear variable naming as they've been…

Right on. Readability is a virtue in its own right, compactness is not.

'Cute' code that leverages language features in creative and surprising ways, generally belongs on code golf competitions, not production systems. If your code is so 'clever' that only you can understand it, that means you're a bad programmer, not a good one. (That's not to say you should avoid making appropriate use of advanced language features for fear of ignorant readers, though. That's another matter.)

Ada was far ahead of the game here, explicitly prioritising readability over writeability, in its language design.

With all that said, an experienced programmer may feel less need to write comments, as their own familiarity with the problem-domain and with the language will be well developed.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#105

Post by scaryclam »

supernova87a wrote: post #18

I have to pile onto the criticism of the hidden scroll bars, and other similar features (like the hidden buttons of PDF viewers now, such as in Chrome). Discoverability is a problem. For anyone (cough, elderly parents) who aren't adept at discovering hidden features, these things can be utterly mind-boggling and frustrating. Even I was stumped for a good minute the first time trying to print/save/download a PDF when…

Here's a link for something I use on such news and blog sites: https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/

I works a surprising amount of the time!

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#106

Post by soco »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #81
pantalaimon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the touchpad won't help you visualize where on the page you are.

I use the larger touchpad rather than a mouse when working at my desk, and I have to say that's been a non-issue—for me anyway. A slight touch/movement on the pad and I know exactly where I am (and the device really is just great...). That said, the issues outlined in this article are glaring, and I do notice them when I switch to PC/Linux and a mouse and back. It's definitely something easy to forget, though. The UX…

I've hat as programmer many times this kind of discussion, about many features. And the lesson I learned goes like this: if somebody has an issue with something, it means they have an issue with something. Telling them "I don't have the issue" does not make their issue go away. In this particular case maybe they really want to see where they are just by looking - like the commenters above just said. That's pretty natural for them, we must agree.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#107

Post by iso1210 »

jakub_g wrote: post #71

If you read between the lines, you should understand that the root cause of issue is the macOS developer monoculture. All you need is one Windows or Linux-based developer in your team to catch those kind of issues. But so many dev teams are macOS-only those days, whereas, apart from US and 2-3 other rich countries, 80%+ or even more of actual desktop users are Windows-based. (There are many other problems with macOS…

It goes beyond that - it affects every part of life, it's why enforcing diversity in your team is a bonus

A good set of examples is here

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/23/truth-w...

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#108

Post by xur17 »

vbsteven wrote: post #102
jakub_g wrote: post #71

If you read between the lines, you should understand that the root cause of issue is the macOS developer monoculture. All you need is one Windows or Linux-based developer in your team to catch those kind of issues. But so many dev teams are macOS-only those days, whereas, apart from US and 2-3 other rich countries, 80%+ or even more of actual desktop users are Windows-based. (There are many other problems with macOS…

I think the macOS monoculture is going to go away in the next few years because on one side macOS is becoming more and more developer hostile with each release and on the other side WSL (and WSL2) is improving the Windows developer experience a lot. I use Windows as my daily driver OS now for both native/web/mobile/devops work and I expect to see more and more developers making that same switch in the coming years.

For folks considering the switch, I highly recommend considering linux as well. I've used both macOS and ubuntu as a development environment, and bug wise they are on par, but linux really excels at having a true "native" development environment. Docker without a weird VM, true bash, etc.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#109

Post by beojan »

jakub_g wrote: post #71

If you read between the lines, you should understand that the root cause of issue is the macOS developer monoculture. All you need is one Windows or Linux-based developer in your team to catch those kind of issues. But so many dev teams are macOS-only those days, whereas, apart from US and 2-3 other rich countries, 80%+ or even more of actual desktop users are Windows-based. (There are many other problems with macOS…

I wouldn't be surprised if 80% of US desktops were Windows. Their users are probably also less tech literate than the Mac users.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#110

Post by CydeWeys »

bradstewart wrote: post #65
dgellow wrote: post #12

Another one of such thing: please try to scroll on your site using a mouse wheel from time to time, even if you're normally using a touchpad (from your laptop or an external one)! Lot of fancy homepage with scroll animations are awful on anything that isn't scrolling as smoothly as a MacBookPro touchpad. Example: https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/ is horrible to use on anything that isn't a mobile device or a Mac.

Developers (seemingly a lot of them?) use a touchpad as their primary input device on a regular basis? I guess this is an example of being in my own bubble, but I can't stand touchpads. I've used the touchpad on MacBook, like, twice in 2 years.

I'm definitely in the mouse club. Using a touchpad all day long makes my fingers cramp up. It's fine for couch laptopping, but when I'm sitting at a desk I use a display, mouse, and mechanical keyboard for an overall better (and more ergonomic) experience.
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