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Scrollbar Blindness

svenkadak.com

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Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#401

Post by bmitc »

munchbunny wrote: post #260
reaperducer wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone (cough, elderly parents) who aren't adept at discovering hidden features You don't even have to be elderly. The 20-somethings in the office (pre-pandemic) had no idea that on an inconsistent smattering of Apple apps, if you pull down, a hidden search bar magically appears. How did that conversation go? Dev: Where do you want the search bar to go? Designer: Put it somewhere that no one will ever see it, or…

I openly admit it these days. If I had a VCR today I'd be the one struggling to figure out how to record something with it, even though as a kid I loved that stuff. And I'm only in my 30's. It's not really about whether I'm able to figure it out (if 8 year old me could figure it out, 30+ year old should be able to as well), it's about whether I have the patience for a badly designed UI. One of the common responses I…

> If I had a VCR today I'd be the one struggling to figure out how to record something with it

That's a little hard to believe. Nothing is hidden on a VCR. There's input connections, a tape, and a big record button. At most there is an additional source button to choose the input source. It's all there, in the open, and not hidden.

Today's interface design is really all over the place. There's just too much stuff hidden and inconsistent. The source of this is our ever increasing reliance on software. If one thinks of writing software as both storing knowledge and communicating with people, it makes sense why software experiences are so bad. Communication and knowledge transfer are in general difficult processes, and now we've automated them at scale but hurried and botched them. Something even more is lost in translation. When we use a software-based product, we're experiencing all the stored miscommunication embedded in the device.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#402

Post by iforgotpassword »

breakfastduck wrote: post #373
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…

It’s so strange to me to read these kind of comments, and to even see this article. I detest scroll bars. When I work on my windows machine I cannot stand seeing them plastered all over the screen. It’s actually quite fascinating to read all these comments - it’s so weird to see people complaining about how they don’t know when a scroll is available. Just scroll and see! No negative feelings toward people who prefer…

> how they don’t know when a scroll is available. Just scroll and see!

Why should I try scrolling everywhere all the time instead of having the UI indicate to me that there is more content? Especially if it isn't clear by having a word or sentence cut of. Maybe the scroll area ends with a paragraph and it's not clear there is more. Why put aesthetics over usability?

Some other comments here claim iPhone users develop some kind of swipe tic where they instinctively try to scroll around on every screen that opens. Would be a pretty sad testimony to this UI concept.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#403

Post by jiveturkey »

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…

> Even I was stumped

Even you? Wow!

But srsly, that's not a snide comment but rather a hint that your personal sensibility may not reflect broad sensibilities. And of course, there may not even be a single broad sensibility -- look at the political parties in the US, both the major divisions and the subdivisions within each. Sometimes, the maker of something has to make a design choice consistent with their [market success proven] direction.

> I don't really need the small sliver of menu space in PDF view to be reclaimed.

When I'm on my laptop, I do. Every inch of vertical space is precious. On my display monitor, not so much, but having the buttons reveal rather than permanent doesn't detract in the slightest.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#404

Post by jchw »

reaperducer wrote: post #163
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…

For anyone (cough, elderly parents) who aren't adept at discovering hidden features You don't even have to be elderly. The 20-somethings in the office (pre-pandemic) had no idea that on an inconsistent smattering of Apple apps, if you pull down, a hidden search bar magically appears. How did that conversation go? Dev: Where do you want the search bar to go? Designer: Put it somewhere that no one will ever see it, or…

The reason why they pull the "what about the elderly?" card is simple. Most of us can figure it out, even if it's stupid. My parents however have a much, much harder time trying to figure out how to do something that is counter-intuitive. It's more about problem solving and experience with existing user interfaces than anything else. Designers nowadays definitely design things in a manner that suggests they assume some pre-existing knowledge of UI patterns.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#405

Post by recursive »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #391
asciimov wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For anyone (cough, elderly parents) who aren't adept at discovering hidden features. I'm in my mid-30's and I find Apple awful at discoverability. Take using Apple Pay. I don't use it often, but covid has had me wanting to. I can't ever seem to remember what sort of hand waving I need to do to get it open. I seem to occasionally bring it up when I don't want to. (It's triple press the home button when the display i…

You don't need to "open" it. You set the phone next to the terminal and the card comes up when radio contact is made.

So you have to sit there and type your credit card into your phone at the checkout? You can't enter it in advance?

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#406

Post by [deleted] »

xur17 wrote: post #108
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.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#407

Post by brazzy »

marssaxman wrote: post #320
baggy_trough wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse than undiscoverable features are land mine features, where some subtle gesture triggers a wild and unwanted mode change. Extra credit if the mode change is hard to get out of.

Oh god. My phone has one of those - there's some sort of swipe gesture which puts it into a split-screen mode, which I have only ever invoked accidentally, and I have no idea how to get rid of it - none of my various guesses at possible anti-swipe actions have worked. When I pull my phone out of my pocket to discover that it has gotten into this state, I just reboot.

> Oh god. My phone has one of those - there's some sort of swipe gesture which puts it into a split-screen mode, which I have only ever invoked accidentally

Somehow my 1 year old son can invoke it repeatably every time he gets his grubby little hands on my phone...

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#408

Post by recursive »

fingerlocks wrote: post #170
bradstewart wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Despite my efforts to consider that people have different preferences for almost everything in life, I am constantly surprised by my assumumptions about how other people do things that turn out to be very wrong. It didn't even occur to me that someone who uses a computer all day long would use a touchpad, even though millions of people own one, Apple continues making them bigger, and the only thing "wron…

I wonder if you’re suffering from past experiences of touch pads from the 1990s? I was a slow adopter for similar reasons. Remind yourself that it works exactly like the screen of an iPhone or iPad, that’s when it clicked for me.

I also prefer mouses to touch screens. My laptop has both, but I use a mouse about 100x as often as the touch screen.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#409

Post by Vinnl »

olyjohn wrote: post #301
saagarjha wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think paying more for hardware significantly changes the problem that was brought up.

I think what he is saying is, don't buy a cheap-ass Dell that runs Windows 10S, then expect to be development powerhouse where all the hardware works properly. He is suggesting buying a developer-oriented laptop that is designed and supported to be running Linux. You'll have less weird hardware quirks that way.

Yep, that's exactly what I meant - and peripherals too. I'm sure a big reason Apple products don't have problems video calling or connecting to projectors is high-end hardware, and I don't think the difference between MacOS and Ubuntu on comparable hardware is anywhere near as striking as their reputations would have you believe.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#410

Post by RulerOf »

rkapsoro wrote: post #77
bradstewart wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I'm really confused, when does MacOS decide to hide scrollbars? Only when you're using a touchpad?

It depends on which pointing device you have installed.

I tried that setting before and it doesn't seem to do a thing when you have both types of devices connected.

I keep a touchpad on the left and a mouse on the right (had the extra hardware then got used to the config), plus the one on the laptop itself, and they're hidden with the "Auto" setting.

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