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The Scroll Up Bar

usabilitypost.com

31–40 of 118 posts

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#31
post #20

FYI one plugin that does that is http://wicky.nillia.ms/headroom.js/

Great! Mailchimp had it on their website but they removed it (dunno why). I like the way the menu doesn't show if you scroll up slowly(!)

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#32
post #15

I don't get why these bars are being used everywhere, personally I find them annoying. Scrolling up takes like half a second...

The sole reason is branding. Websites don't want you just reading content; they want you reading content on their site. The most obvious way to remind you that you're reading it on their site, and thus convince you to come back, is a fixed header bar.

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#33
post #15

I don't get why these bars are being used everywhere, personally I find them annoying. Scrolling up takes like half a second...

The sole reason is branding. Websites don't want you just reading content; they want you reading content on their site . The most obvious way to remind you that you're reading it on their site, and thus convince you to come back, is a fixed header bar.

Funny thing that they make a site that looks exactly the same as every other site, and then they discover that they have a branding problem.

I never have any problem remembering that I'm readding HN.

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#34
post #27
post #15

I don't get why these bars are being used everywhere, personally I find them annoying. Scrolling up takes like half a second...

This really depends on the device. iOS devices with their fancy inertial stuff scrolling is very pleasant but if you're using entry level cheap devices, scrolling is not as easy or pleasant. Specially with the new trend of infinite scrolling sites where your scroll down for days...

Is there a device where tapping the top of the screen doesn't immediately scroll to the top?

If anything, these bars are worse on devices that have poor scrolling behavior, as I've found they tend to interfere with scrolling.

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#35

They're a problem on non-mobile, as well. If the bar is over content, but the scrollbar isn't adjusted for it, pressing space or pagedown doesn't move down one page worth of visible content. I don't get why breaking pagedown is acceptable. It's my preferred way to read long text.

Yes, this is quite a pet peeve of mine. Every other site nowadays seems to do this, even ones that I thought should know better (arstechnica is one that comes to mind)

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#36
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really depends on the device. iOS devices with their fancy inertial stuff scrolling is very pleasant but if you're using entry level cheap devices, scrolling is not as easy or pleasant. Specially with the new trend of infinite scrolling sites where your scroll down for days...

Is there a device where tapping the top of the screen doesn't immediately scroll to the top? If anything, these bars are worse on devices that have poor scrolling behavior, as I've found they tend to interfere with scrolling.

Yes, most Android devices don't have that feature as far as I know. And it is possibly a bad time to introduce it, because by now users may have already learned that tapping the status bar (on recent Android versions at least) shows the time and date in bigger fonts, as if starting to open the notifications screen.

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#37
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really depends on the device. iOS devices with their fancy inertial stuff scrolling is very pleasant but if you're using entry level cheap devices, scrolling is not as easy or pleasant. Specially with the new trend of infinite scrolling sites where your scroll down for days...

Is there a device where tapping the top of the screen doesn't immediately scroll to the top? If anything, these bars are worse on devices that have poor scrolling behavior, as I've found they tend to interfere with scrolling.

Chrome on Android doesn't.

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#38

Am I the only one who prefers to read websites in "desktop" mode? I always feel totally alienated by the mobile page, there is information left out, annoying badly-implemented JS scrollers, etc... The "desktop" site looks always more nice and familiar, and you can zoom and scroll around as you wish to read everything.

Mobile sites should ONLY serve you text for an article. I don't understand how people don't understand this when created UI/UX for products.

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#39

Am I the only one who prefers to read websites in "desktop" mode? I always feel totally alienated by the mobile page, there is information left out, annoying badly-implemented JS scrollers, etc... The "desktop" site looks always more nice and familiar, and you can zoom and scroll around as you wish to read everything.

No, you're not alone. I almost always choose desktop mode where available, primarily because mobile sites disable zoom and choose settings for margins and font sizes that make their text almost unreadably large - frequently only two or three words per line, with masses of whitespace all around.

Reading such articles feels claustrophobic, because you're stuck in this long tunnel of text, with little visual indicator of how long it lasts, inducing anxiety about wasted time. If you're somewhere in the middle, it's a long trip back up to the top.

The close to optimal mobile browser for me was the original (AOSP) Android browser around 2.3. It rewrapped text on double-tap to fit in the visible page area, meaning you could choose what effective font size worked well for you. And zoom still worked, so you had a good handle on where you were on the page, and an easy way out of it.

Neither Firefox nor Chrome on Android are as good a browser for me. Unfortunately, getting the AOSP browser back is awkward, unless you want to use Dolphin or similar, and besides, it no longer has the rewrap functionality.

PS: Google are the evil people here. They deliberately removed this feature from Chrome and AOSP browser, and are punishing sites that don't serve mobile-specific content - i.e. content that is less usable for people who prefer zoom-based navigation.

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sole reason is branding. Websites don't want you just reading content; they want you reading content on their site . The most obvious way to remind you that you're reading it on their site, and thus convince you to come back, is a fixed header bar.

Funny thing that they make a site that looks exactly the same as every other site, and then they discover that they have a branding problem. I never have any problem remembering that I'm readding HN.

Branding problem, or a content problem?
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