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The Scroll Up Bar

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Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#61

Post by pimlottc »

RobotCaleb wrote: post #21

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.

Thank you! It is a huge peeve of mine as well. There needs to be a good post somewhere to publicize this issue. Something you can point to when you find a broken site that lays out the solution so it can be fixed.

But I'm not sure exactly what the mechanism is that causes this; I thought it was simple a case of forgetting to add top padding to the page body, but that doesn't always seem to be the case. Last time I saw a site that did this, it already had the padding but still misbehaved in Chrome. Yet the paging worked correctly in Firefox! Further testing showed Safari worked, so (in this case, at least) it seemed to be webkit-related.

But that's just one scenario. I suspect there's a number of ways people get this wrong, and it's unfortunately not just a single simple fix for all cases.

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#62

Post by pimlottc »

I suspect this was influenced by the browser behavior in iOS 7. Almost all the browser chrome (full address bar and status bar) disappears when you start scrolling but reappears if you scroll back up quickly.

In fact, the iOS behavior is rather more nuanced:

  * Scrolling down hides chrome
  * Swiping up quickly reveals chrome
  * Scrolling up slowly does not reveal chrome
  * Scrolling to the top of the page reveals chrome
  * Over-scrolling past the bottom reveals chrome
It's often interesting to see how much consideration Apple puts into small details like this.

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#63

Post by nilved »

I'm quite surprised to see anybody suggesting this pattern be used, because it's exactly why I had to stop using Firefox for Android. It makes no sense to need to scroll up and lose your place in a page to access the menu. Whichever designer suggested those two actions be bound together doesn't have any business designing.

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#64

Post by pimlottc »

rbonvall wrote: post #58
RobotCaleb wrote: post #21

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.

It is also my pet peeve. It is a big disadvantage, and I haven't ever needed the top bar (or wished it was there when there isn't one) so for me top bars are a feature with negative score. I guess we spacebarers are a minority and most people use the mouse wheel or the down arrow.

> I guess we spacebarers are a minority and most people use the mouse wheel or the down arrow.

I wondered recently if this doesn't bother other people; but all three of the other developers I sit with said they scroll via mouse/touchpad. One of them said he wasn't even aware of doing it consciously.

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#65

Post by nilved »

farmdawgnation wrote: post #14
micampe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what mobile phone you use, but on iOS tapping the status bar scrolls back to the top of the page (or anything else that scrolls in the system).

Aside: Is there a way to detect that happening in JavaScript? Just thinking that detecting the user doing that and then showing the site's nav bar again would be groovy...

Yes, onscroll

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#66

Post by rrrx3 »

nilved wrote: post #63

I'm quite surprised to see anybody suggesting this pattern be used, because it's exactly why I had to stop using Firefox for Android. It makes no sense to need to scroll up and lose your place in a page to access the menu. Whichever designer suggested those two actions be bound together doesn't have any business designing.

Scrolling has long been established as a transient action. It makes total sense to submerge the menu until such time as it's needed. This pattern is prevalent in plenty of mobile apps. Google Chrome on iOS is a shining example. Safari, as well.

You can make a reasonable assumption that users scrolling down are reading content, and thusly have no need for the menu bar. What I'm seeing from your perspective is that you're failing to recognize that "losing your place" in order to reveal the menu is a complete change of task. By bringing back the menu, or even using it if it were in place statically, your task and intent has shifted. If you've decided to abort your menu task and revert to reading content, it provides less cognitive friction to let the user scroll themselves back to their original place.

My question to you is - what logical sense does it make to stop reading an article midway through and begin interacting with the menu, unless your intent is to navigate away from the content itself? And if it makes sense to you to do this, why do you find yourself changing and aborting tasks so swiftly? Are there other interactions that you've failed to discover that might be beneficial (tap and hold to get a menu, for example)?

TL;DR - you're bitching about an edge case.

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#67

Post by pimlottc »

pimlottc wrote: post #61
RobotCaleb wrote: post #21

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.

Thank you! It is a huge peeve of mine as well. There needs to be a good post somewhere to publicize this issue. Something you can point to when you find a broken site that lays out the solution so it can be fixed. But I'm not sure exactly what the mechanism is that causes this; I thought it was simple a case of forgetting to add top padding to the page body, but that doesn't always seem to be the case. Last time I sa…

Here's two broken-in-webkit-working-in-Firefox examples:

http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/05/stream-robyn-and-royks...

http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014/05/7-eleven-just-killed-...

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#68

Post by frik »

soapdog wrote: post #27
pera wrote: 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...

Infinte scroll works fine on deskop, but is not very useful on mobile devices with a spotty connection.

Though, personally I would like pagination (like Google) back for Facebook, Flickr and also Google Images - scrolling down a few "pages" is just buggy on those sites, and click on the wrong link and you have to go back and scroll all the way down!

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#69

Post by [deleted] »

rrrx3 wrote: post #66
nilved wrote: post #63

I'm quite surprised to see anybody suggesting this pattern be used, because it's exactly why I had to stop using Firefox for Android. It makes no sense to need to scroll up and lose your place in a page to access the menu. Whichever designer suggested those two actions be bound together doesn't have any business designing.

Scrolling has long been established as a transient action. It makes total sense to submerge the menu until such time as it's needed. This pattern is prevalent in plenty of mobile apps. Google Chrome on iOS is a shining example. Safari, as well. You can make a reasonable assumption that users scrolling down are reading content, and thusly have no need for the menu bar. What I'm seeing from your perspective is that you…

[deleted]

Re: The Scroll Up Bar

#70

Post by Pxtl »

I honestly loathe the "scroll up bar" feature in Chrome browser because it throws off my instincts about how to interact with the UI. If something auto-hides into the top of the screen, my instinct is to pull it down from the top if I want to see it again. That just brings up the Android notification system.
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