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Death to Scroll Fade

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Re: Death to Scroll Fade

#171

Post by toss1 »

Illniyar wrote: post #124
Night_Thastus wrote: post #96

Something else scroll-related I personally hate: Sticky 'headers' that disappear when you scroll down, and appear when you scroll up. I hate them so much. It hurts my brain to see the stupid thing appear and disappear constantly if I scroll around a page. The worst part is you can't even zap them out of the way with something like uBlock, because then there's no header even when you're at the top of the page. >:( EDI…

This is literally the best ux pattern you can have. It is intuitive - user immediately discovers it when performing the obvious action, it increases the user experience (more text to read) without any real downside. It is the first thing I suggest to anyone when I see someone didn't implement it. I've never heard a complaint about it until now.

>>without any real downside

Wow, impressive blindness!

Seriously, have you ever used one? Because most people do not read monotonically downwards. We often scroll back to see something in a previous sentence referred to in the spot we are reading. So we want to go back one or two lines. Bot NOOOOooo, the header pops up, covers 1/4 of the screen, so now we have to scroll that much more, pushing off the screen the other text we hoped to keep on the screen, and it might even go through a few adjustments. So, now, what was a non-event less distracting than turning the page in a book or magazine has now become a fully distracting scroll-fest.

Is that clear enough for you?

>>This is literally the best ux pattern you can have.

NOT EVEN CLOSE. The best User Experience pattern is to give the reader what they asked for AND NOTHING MORE. Nothing more for you, nothing more for your advertisers, and nothing more for them. We click to read the content, LET US READ the content, ALL the content, and NOTHING BUT the content. We'll even understand if some proper STATIC adverts are placed in the content, and we might even click thru if you've shown us something relevant and interesting

But as soon as you start putting motion and other distraction in the adverts, my priority becomes NOT reading the advert, but figuring out how to get it out of my face. And if by some chance I remember it, it is filed among "companies to avoid".

Why does it seem everyone who deals with advertising, from the execs down to the programmers, so stupidly thinks only of the first-order effects — "Grab Their Attention!" — and not the second-order effects, where being so offensive — surprise! — offends people...

Re: Death to Scroll Fade

#173

Post by delbronski »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #149
delbronski wrote: post #125

Why do web animations get so much hate with the HN crowd? I think a website is similar to a painting. Some will make you dizzy by just looking at them, and others will be a minimalist dream. Don’t hate me HN, but I say keep messing with the scroll bar, keep making annoying blinking banners, have your way with scroll fade. Don’t listen to these web dev veterans, they are just like snobby movie critics!

They get hate because they are almost always annoying and distract from the actual content. Nobody cares how creative your web page design is if it sucks to use so badly that a plain text page would be better.

But do they really suck to use so badly? Like for real? The examples that have been listed in the comments (Apple and Claude sites) look totally fine to me. People here are talking about them like they are the worse websites ever.

Re: Death to Scroll Fade

#174

Post by gopher_space »

dylan604 wrote: post #164
kreyenborgi wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god yes I absolutely hate those. Who on earth thought that was a good idea. There is a special circle in hell where designers of such sites have to actually use the sites they design.

someone designing for mobile first and wanted to maximize screen space. we don't have to be obtuse about it. it was an idea that just didn't go over as well as hoped. clearly, some people like it. it's not your cup of tea, great. now, we all know your feelings. next time i build a site, i'll be sure to get your opinions first.

This kind of malaise is why everything feels mobile-only now.

Re: Death to Scroll Fade

#175

Post by wtallis »

hirako2000 wrote: post #104

What sucks with scroll fade is when it fades slower than one can read or scroll. Fading the entire content very fast, so fast that it's barely perceptible is actually better on the eyes. Blinking hurts. Fast changing contrast hurts. The fade is a natural effect I use everywhere almost. My eyes never complained, rather are grateful for the small effort it takes to get right

The motion of the scrolling already ensures that the new content is revealed gradually. There's no need for a fade-in animation on top of that. It's just punishing the user for scrolling too fast.

Re: Death to Scroll Fade

#176

Post by matheusmoreira »

delbronski wrote: post #125

Why do web animations get so much hate with the HN crowd? I think a website is similar to a painting. Some will make you dizzy by just looking at them, and others will be a minimalist dream. Don’t hate me HN, but I say keep messing with the scroll bar, keep making annoying blinking banners, have your way with scroll fade. Don’t listen to these web dev veterans, they are just like snobby movie critics!

Because it's just as tasteless as the beginner who discovered the font dropdown and chose Papyrus. Yeah we're all marvelling at your web coding prowess -- has the actual content shown up on screen yet?

Reminds me of me the https://motherfuckingwebsite.com.

> Shit's legible and gets your fucking point across (if you had one instead of just 5mb pics of hipsters drinking coffee)

Re: Death to Scroll Fade

#177

Post by hbn »

vmg12 wrote: post #120
Night_Thastus wrote: post #96

Something else scroll-related I personally hate: Sticky 'headers' that disappear when you scroll down, and appear when you scroll up. I hate them so much. It hurts my brain to see the stupid thing appear and disappear constantly if I scroll around a page. The worst part is you can't even zap them out of the way with something like uBlock, because then there's no header even when you're at the top of the page. >:( EDI…

Also if anything it should disappear when scrolling down and appear when scrolling up.

That's how they work. It's what the GP said.

Re: Death to Scroll Fade

#178

Post by wtallis »

Animats wrote: post #107

This terrible idea is a parody of a good idea from game design - LOD cross-fade. When a distant object changes from a low level of detail representation to a higher one, or vice versa, the change is best done as a cross fade. The old one fades out to transparent, the new one fades in from transparent. This is done to hide the change, not as a creative effect. The human visual system is very sensitive to fast changes.…

It works for games because the fade-in of distant objects happens long before the object in question becomes the focus of the user's attention. It cannot work well for scrolling a web page because getting to the new content is the entire reason the user is scrolling the page, so they're going to be looking right at it (and trying to read it) during the fade.

Re: Death to Scroll Fade

#179

Post by bartread »

I mean, fine, I don’t love scrollfade either, and I realise this site is trying to prove a point but, FFS, most of the problems can be solved by forcing the scroll fade to complete in 100 - 300ms as opposed to some glacially slow multi-second pace.

Like I say, I don’t love it, but when we create sites we all have control over animation durations and there’s enough UX guidance around response times to easily avoid it completely sucking.

So the real problems isn’t scrollfade, it’s that - in the face of overwhelming data - it’s both mandated and implemented poorly by people with no taste.

If you’re going to implement any animation of any kind at least do us all the bare minimum courtesy and take 5 minutes to do some research into what works and what doesn’t first.

Re: Death to Scroll Fade

#180

Post by [deleted] »

dylan604 wrote: post #164
kreyenborgi wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god yes I absolutely hate those. Who on earth thought that was a good idea. There is a special circle in hell where designers of such sites have to actually use the sites they design.

someone designing for mobile first and wanted to maximize screen space. we don't have to be obtuse about it. it was an idea that just didn't go over as well as hoped. clearly, some people like it. it's not your cup of tea, great. now, we all know your feelings. next time i build a site, i'll be sure to get your opinions first.

[deleted]
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