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Don't reinvent the scrollbar

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Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#141

Post by TheZenPsycho »

Gormo wrote: post #140
coldtea wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My argument is that having this specific option is a mistake. That's a belief. I don't see any argument here. Why is it a mistake? Perhaps modern users, not tied to a legacy of scrollbars, could not care less about them? Perhaps 95% of users (with the exception of hackers) not even use them or notice them when they are there? > Those people are not designers, and should not ever be put in the position of designing…

"Designers" should never be put in a position of designing a UI. Claiming the mantle of "designer" usually seems to reveal a preference for static aesthetics over functional utility. Nearly every time I see someone talking about "design" in the realm of user interfaces, or about making software "beautiful", they're invariably attempting to use concepts applicable to media intended for the presentation of information…

Design is how it works. Not how it looks. How it looks is properly called "style".

If you have found a "Designer" who is overly concerned with how it looks and not so much how it works, the conclusion to reach is that you have found a bad designer, not that all "designers" are concerned only with aesthetics.

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#142

Post by James_Duval »

shadowOfShadow wrote: post #73

I dislike scrolling. I dislike scrollbars. All. Re-imagine content. Eliminate scrolling. Keep content represented on the screen. Elegent, progressively granular navigation on the screen. I love when a scrollbar handle thins to represent the proportion of content on the screen and shits the usability bed. You have only so many words left to say or type. Use less. Live/Say more. Condense information to fit the medium.…

Writers aren't typically paid by the word.

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#143

Post by dagw »

James_Duval wrote: post #142
shadowOfShadow wrote: post #73

I dislike scrolling. I dislike scrollbars. All. Re-imagine content. Eliminate scrolling. Keep content represented on the screen. Elegent, progressively granular navigation on the screen. I love when a scrollbar handle thins to represent the proportion of content on the screen and shits the usability bed. You have only so many words left to say or type. Use less. Live/Say more. Condense information to fit the medium.…

Writers aren't typically paid by the word.

I don't know about 'typically', but it isn't uncommon among freelancer writers.

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#144

Post by drzaiusapelord »

zobzu wrote: post #75
mietek wrote: post #13

I was nodding along, when suddenly... > One alternative is to ignore iOS and OS X users. But that’s not very nice. There are many scrolling libraries available that you can use, such as NiceScroll. > Or you can just make your own indicator like the one seen at the very start of the article. Just don’t use a horizontal indicator for vertical progression :) No! Do not do this. Just stop. Stop reinventing and reimplemen…

As unpopular as it might be I think he's got a point about this too. it's just that it's not very clearly articulated. At the end of the day, customers and others browsing your site are unlikely to understand why there's no visual indication on their mac, and why you didn't put one on your site.Sooo.. if you're forced to put a visual indicator, at the very least least, make it vertical for page scrolling. (and also,…

They either need to learn how to use their macs or switch to Windows. Fixing ignorant OSX users expectations isn't and shouldn't be a webdev's problem.

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#145

Post by CodeCube »

> Maybe there are better ways of monetising than forcing multiple pages of ads down your users throats? :)

If you decide that you want to show multiple ads, just intersperse them throughout the content. Break it up and insert them in between some of the paragraphs

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#146

Post by rits »

eksith wrote: post #38

An article shouldn’t be split across multiple pages on the web! We have an infinitely long canvas to write on, along with an elegant way of moving through it. Why would you need to split it up?" Well, there are some times you would want to break up a long article. E.G. A tutorial that can touch on multiple steps can be helped with multiple pages. An alternative would be to provide in-page anchors and a contents list…

Also some times you can't read long article on your phone because its too long to fit in phone memory. For ex try to view html 5 single page spec[1] on your phone, especialy if your phone not 8 cores 2GB mem device.

[1] - http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/single-page.html

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#147

Post by p9idf »

LowKarmaAccount wrote: post #57

There have been improvements to scroll bars; they just haven't really gained widespread acceptance. On Genera, when you moused over the vertical scroll bar, a thin horizontal line appears across the screen at whatever x height your mouse was is. You could then click to tell the OS that you wanted to wanted to reflow the page using that x height as a reference point. If you pointed your mouse at the horizontal scroll…

Oberon does exactly this. X and Plan 9 do so as well, but without the markers.

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#148

Post by Gormo »

TheZenPsycho wrote: post #141
Gormo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Designers" should never be put in a position of designing a UI. Claiming the mantle of "designer" usually seems to reveal a preference for static aesthetics over functional utility. Nearly every time I see someone talking about "design" in the realm of user interfaces, or about making software "beautiful", they're invariably attempting to use concepts applicable to media intended for the presentation of information…

Design is how it works. Not how it looks. How it looks is properly called "style". If you have found a "Designer" who is overly concerned with how it looks and not so much how it works, the conclusion to reach is that you have found a bad designer, not that all "designers" are concerned only with aesthetics.

If "design" is meant to refer to how things work rather than how they look, then it's clear that the majority of people talking about "design" with respect to software UIs are using the term incorrectly.

People who call themselves "designers" in this context, and at the present moment, generally are prioritizing screenshot aesthetics over functional utility, and we're getting worse software because of it.

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#149

Post by minikites »

super_mario wrote: post #136
bhauer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Not to put to fine a point on it, but if your user is on iOS or OS X, they are accustomed to losing sight of their progress because, as the article says, "Apple knows best." Going out of your way as a content author to correct for the user interface quirks of the reader's preferred reading environment seems extraordinary and unnecessary. Presumably a non-trivial number of iOS and OS X users actually like the…

I would go even further and say that the lack of scroll bar in OS X has lead to lower uptake of read material. Here is what scroll bar does for me: 1. It gives me instant feedback about the size of the document (the shorter the scrollbar the bigger the document). 2. It shows me rough position in the document. 3. Provides reading context (I'm 35% into the document and I'm reading on subject X) which aids memorizing th…

I agree for plain documents, but tons of online articles list comments on the same page, so the scroll bar is almost a negative incentive to keep reading.

"I've read this much of the article and I'm only 1/20th of the way down?" [user stops reading, unaware that there's 450 comments and the article is actually pretty short]

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#150

Post by rsynnott »

colmvp wrote: post #33
mietek wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you hate that your scrollbar is hidden when not in use, you can go to System Preferences / General and change the "Show scroll bars" setting to "Always". If you hate that my scrollbar is hidden when not in use, well, tough luck. I like it this way. If you force yet another custom, badly-implemented, weirdly-behaving, not-entirely-thought-through scrollbar on me, I will hate you and never visit your website again.

"If you force yet another custom, badly-implemented, weirdly-behaving, not-entirely-thought-through scrollbar on me, I will hate you and never visit your website again." Pretty sure Gmail uses custom scrollbars and I wouldn't be surprised if it's the most commonly used e-mail in the world. I think Facebook also uses a custom scrollbar on their activity feed. Same with Rdio's web app and Spotify's web app (unless it l…

> Pretty sure Gmail uses custom scrollbars

It does. It's pretty obnoxious, but they're at least well-implemented, unlike most custom scrollbars.

> I think Facebook also uses a custom scrollbar on their activity feed.

It doesn't (or at least it doesn't in Safari; maybe it does in other browsers?)

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