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Scrollbar Blindness

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Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#171

Post by reaperducer »

ManskY wrote: post #116
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…

There has always been a struggle with UX design, people want simplicity but at the same time they want clarity and complexity of ideas. People want great knowledge, but they don't want to read about the nuances that makes it a great knowledge. There are valid reasons for both sides of the equation, it is just difficult to find the balance to satisfied the myriad of different perspectives.

it is just difficult to find the balance to satisfied the myriad of different perspectives.

We used to achieve this balance with a manual.

A printed manual. Not a URL printed in 3 point Helvetica in light gray on a white background on a tiny leaflet in amongst a dozen similar-looking regulatory leaflets that will all go into the recycling bin when the new shiny shows up.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#172

Post by vvpan »

madeofpalk wrote: post #144
vbsteven wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As always, it's all about the tooling. For better or worse, more is moving to web/electron, but for teams using Sketch, good luck trying to open Sketch file on Windows. After getting a Windows gaming PC, I've been spending more and more of my time, developing and otherwise, on PC. I prefer it because it's where I have my large (low DPI :( ) monitor, but Windows is still full of so many papercuts in general usage (I m…

Didn't Microsoft make an effort to bring Linux into Windows a few years back? Is that no longer a thing?

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#173

Post by jordache »

pcr910303 wrote: post #82

Really, am I the only person here who can't understand the complaints on hiding scrollbars? I do agree with a lot of things that resonates HN, but this is one thing that I have never understood. Stop complaining about discoverability, everyone that knows how to browse the web knows how to scroll. It's like worrying whether the user will know how to use a mouse when you're designing a web page. Scrolling is not someth…

you totally missed the point.

MacOS default UX w/ the hidden scrollbar represents a tiny portion of any consumer-facing web product's user base.

So what is the value of a development team, not experiencing the same UX as the vast majority of their users?

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#174

Post by amiga-workbench »

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…

Another thing I keep bumping into is designers assuming a nice 16:10 display, and wondering why when the final product is opened up on a 1366x768 shitbox barely any actual content is visible.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#175

Post by wott »

geerlingguy wrote: post #31
codingdave wrote: post #27

> If you are a front-end developer that uses macOS, I kindly ask you to dedicate a little more attention to how the websites you create behave on platforms other than your own. I'd take that one step farther - no matter what platform you code on, test your UX on all the others.

I'm looking at you, all sites that only work on Chrome and break in subtle ways on Firefox or Safari.

The worst are sites which get broken every other year (each time they are redesigned/rewritten) whereas they provide nothing more, feature-wise, than what they provided 15 years ago. And yet it forces you to update your browser to one that provides the latest compatibility with the latest Chrome "feature".

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#176

Post by liability »

zeveb wrote: post #119
liability wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect devs who use macbooks to generally use them the same way as the general population generally uses them. I can't think of a plausible reason to suspect that developers specifically might prefer traditional mice. One demographic I would expect traditional mouse usage from would be gamers. When I play a first person game I always use my trusty old intellimouse. Otherwise, I use the trackpad unless I'm sim…

> I can't think of a plausible reason to suspect that developers specifically might prefer traditional mice. I imagine that developers would prefer mice if people who use computers intensively and knowledgeably prefer mice, and I suspect people who use computers intensively and knowledgeably do prefer mice, the same way that I believe we prefer good keyboards and good monitors.

I prefer good mice and good trackpads to poor mice and poor trackpads. But trackpads vs mice? Your comment insinuates a that a clear good/bad dichotomy exists here but I don't think that's generally the case. My above comment notes one context where I do believe that's true, but in the general case? For standard desktop interactions? I don't think mice are objectively better. If anything the proximity of a trackpad makes it better, but that's certainly debatable.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#177

Post by neilpanchal »

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…

> US-based devs: outside of your country (that is, >95% of humanity), most people do not have a Mac, an iPhone, nor use MM/DD/YYYY dates and 12-hour clock.

This is an unsubstantiated claim, why bring up and bundle the entire United States to support your claim? I was with you until this.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#178

Post by hellofunk »

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…

Lots of countries use a 12 hour clock, that’s a strange claim to make.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#180

Post by ultrarunner »

0xffff2 wrote: post #120
beojan wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Funny. I wonder when this (perception?) shift occurred. 15 years ago, it was distinctly the perception that Mac users were the tech-illiterate ones. Have all the tech-illiterate users abandoned Apple, or have they just been drowned out by the bay area macOS dev culture?

In my experience in a graphics lab, the perception was that Macs (thought they often wrote that in all caps) “couldn’t do anything.” Specifically, having a one button mouse made them unusable. I never had trouble being productive and greatly enjoyed the old Macs, but I think it was just a different way of looking at computers.

Now that macOS is every bit as complicated as windows, it’s often Microsoft’s OS that can’t do something. WSL helps some of that, but there are usability shortcuts that Windows doesn’t have. Windows is also insultingly condescending with its verbiage (“Getting Windows Ready” or “Working on Updates”). Maybe aiming low in their explanations is their one-button-mouse moment.

I don’t think the users were ever all tech-illiterate on either platform. Only perceptions have changed.

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