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I want the world to scroll this way

magicscroll.net

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Re: I want the world to scroll this way

#71

Post by ChrisInToronto »

"It might take you a second or two to get used to it but it is better." Says who? While I'm not trying to debunk the claim, I'm curious if there is there any real evidence or proof on this or if it really is just an unfounded boast?

While I agree that stationary text may be easier to focus on the words themselves, I personally find the "magic-scroll" effect makes it harder for me to read. I tend to move my content into the middle of the screen and will occasionally jump back and re-read a paragraph, both of which magic-scroll seems to prevent.

Perhaps it's a user adaptation problem, but it just seems more constrained and less natural to me...

Re: I want the world to scroll this way

#73

Post by robmcm »

saint-loup wrote: post #44
jiaaro wrote: post #28

Honestly... this made things confusing without improving my reading ability. a lot of people actually like scrolling. So many people in fact, that they successfully pressured Apple to add scrolling as an alternative to pagination in iBooks. I'm one of the people who uses that. I'm trying to be polite, but my honest reaction to this interface was, "oh god, this is awful," when I tried to use the mouse to scroll the pa…

"You'll get used to it" can quickly becomes a lazy excuse for many bad experimentations in interaction design, but in this case I really think this is the right answer. At first, I found it disturbing as hell, and the implementation could be better (for instance, with a margin between the two pages, in addition to the black line), but this is really an interesting and promising answer to the pagination/scroll debate.

Like, you'll get used to inverted scroll in Mountain Lion?

Innovation takes getting used to, evolution doesn't.

Re: I want the world to scroll this way

#74

Post by lucian1900 »

pertinhower wrote: post #50

Nice idea, badly implemented. The interface teaches me how to use it very badly. The most obvious interface clues are the arrows to either side of the page, but these work in the usual manner (hopping from page to page), so they distract me from the heart of your interface. When I do happen to mousewheel, I can't immediately understand what that does. Am I moving myself or a divider? Why is the divider coming from th…

I hadn't even tried to scroll!

Re: I want the world to scroll this way

#75

Post by EGreg »

I wouldn't call this scrolling, I would call this revealing.

Scrolling actually is continuous (think of a scroll being unrolled from the botom and rolled up at the top).

Revealing would be nice for reading forward, and I have to admit that I feel a sense of accomplishment and control when revealing further text. And as a result, I read more of the page!

But the psychological aspect of revealing things can also be done with scrolling, for example the parallax pages such as NikeBetterWorld (now taken down but you can see it at http://www.ianlunn.co.uk/demos/recreate-nikebetterworld-para...) and Ben the Bodyguard and the other sites here: http://webdesigncrowd.com/websites-unique-scrolling-adventur...

As you reveal more of the world in a novel way, you feel a sense of curiosity. Once the novelty wears off, though, you are left right back there with the content.

The key to revealing things is that you are more focused on the new stuff instead of the old. In this sense, I agree tha the revealing is better than scrolling, because when scrolling, you don't immediately focus on the new stuff. Instead, the old and some of the new stuff is all a big blur until you stop scrolling. That breaks your concentration.

However, as someone pointed out, revealing is not good for "scrolling back up". That is an important point. Revealing is a different psychological phenomenon.

To summarize: revealing is not scrolling. Revealing is about using a novel method of showing new content, always de-emphasizing the old one (in Ben the Bodyguard, for instance, new things move but the old things stay still). Revealing is good for presenting information in a forward direction, and wears off with the novelty of the method. The web shouldn't all scroll this way.

Re: I want the world to scroll this way

#76

Post by leed25d »

It's is a good idea to be sure and I tried it out on several articles. The extension cause my chrome to lock up a few though, and I really do not have time to diagnose the failure. I hope that you get it working later.

Re: I want the world to scroll this way

#77

Post by wtracy »

msutherl wrote: post #66

1. One downside of this interface is that it's difficult to keep track of where you are. The scroll metaphor is broken and the pagination metaphor is not fully implemented (you need an indicator of where you are, like pages in a real book). The percentage indicator doesn't cut it. 2. Control feels too fine. It's too easy to lose your place and mental effort needs to be devoted to properly placing the page divider. I…

If you scroll using a touchpad the divider moves exactly one text line at a time. The problem is "clicky" mouse wheels that try to enforce their own units of movement.

Re: I want the world to scroll this way

#78

Post by robotmay »

robmcm wrote: post #73
saint-loup wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You'll get used to it" can quickly becomes a lazy excuse for many bad experimentations in interaction design, but in this case I really think this is the right answer. At first, I found it disturbing as hell, and the implementation could be better (for instance, with a margin between the two pages, in addition to the black line), but this is really an interesting and promising answer to the pagination/scroll debate.

Like, you'll get used to inverted scroll in Mountain Lion? Innovation takes getting used to, evolution doesn't.

I never got used to that, it seemed totally backwards to me. I can deal with it on a screen where my finger is (almost) physically attached to what I'm scrolling, but not on a detached mouse/trackpad and display.

Re: I want the world to scroll this way

#79

Post by EGreg »

fastball wrote: post #60
pertinhower wrote: post #50

Nice idea, badly implemented. The interface teaches me how to use it very badly. The most obvious interface clues are the arrows to either side of the page, but these work in the usual manner (hopping from page to page), so they distract me from the heart of your interface. When I do happen to mousewheel, I can't immediately understand what that does. Am I moving myself or a divider? Why is the divider coming from th…

I think you're over-engineering your analysis... I immediately knew what was going on when I started scrolling, so I don't share your view that it is counter-intuitive. Also, I think your problem with the scrolling is your mouse. Does your mouse have a smoothly scrolling middle button, or is it one of the ones that moves in clicks? Scrolling with my touchpad worked excellently. You only see a white page when you are…

I would add one thing to make it much more clear: darken the text below the divider to give a clue that it was invalidated

even better, have a background gradient corresponding to the "age" of the horizontal line that's being shown

the gradient would make a subtle but intuitive hint as the movement commenced!!!

Re: I want the world to scroll this way

#80

Post by sspiff »

msutherl wrote: post #66

1. One downside of this interface is that it's difficult to keep track of where you are. The scroll metaphor is broken and the pagination metaphor is not fully implemented (you need an indicator of where you are, like pages in a real book). The percentage indicator doesn't cut it. 2. Control feels too fine. It's too easy to lose your place and mental effort needs to be devoted to properly placing the page divider. I…

Try scrolling up, above the first page. You can get a perfect indicator of where you are as you are reading, as far as I'm concerned.
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