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.
The Scroll Up Bar
21–30 of 118 posts
Re: The Scroll Up Bar
#22What's worse is some sites that do this can't seem to differentiate between iPads and iPhones and seem to use percentages everywhere in their CSS. As a result, you get a huge header (which feels larger in landscape orientation).
Re: The Scroll Up Bar
#23Am 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.
Re: The Scroll Up Bar
#24The thing about this is that there is, as far as I can tell, no good solution for the fact that it can take a long, long time to return to the top of a page with a lot of text on a mobile device. If I read 3/4 of a lengthy story on my phone and I want to navigate somewhere else on the same website my only practical option is to revisit the main page of the site and start navigating from there. Do any mobile browsers…
In Safari Mobile, tapping the top of the screen brings you back to the top of the page.
Re: The Scroll Up Bar
#25Am I the only one hating Twitter's Android app behavior in terms of fixed bars?
I tend to read tweets from oldest to newest, and the "Home/Discover/Activity" bar always gets on my way. Moreover, I don't even need the top blue bar. Just gimme the content!
Re: The Scroll Up Bar
#26The thing about this is that there is, as far as I can tell, no good solution for the fact that it can take a long, long time to return to the top of a page with a lot of text on a mobile device. If I read 3/4 of a lengthy story on my phone and I want to navigate somewhere else on the same website my only practical option is to revisit the main page of the site and start navigating from there. Do any mobile browsers…
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).
[deleted]
Re: The Scroll Up Bar
#27I 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...
Re: The Scroll Up Bar
#28For me, the ideal solution is just get rid of the fixed bar, and have a clickable menu drop down. I don't want a page to analyze every of my behaviors and try to predict what I want to do. Sometimes I just like to scroll up and down to look for stuff, and I don't want some bar flashing in and out.
Re: The Scroll Up Bar
#29I used to call these type of things, short-lived fads really: User Interface (UI) element of the week. Fortunately, UI isn't changing that often anymore. However, Javascript and the "mobile" platform are bringing "User Interface element of the week" back.
I am seeing lots of weird scrolly things these days. And, pages that blink out and then reappear, as they get rendered and rerendered and rerendered again by Javascript. Lots of other annoying Web 2.0 thingies that do little more than annoy. If I was a better writer, I could probably write a weekly WTF about "User Interface element of the week."
Yes, "fixed bars" are annoying. We've had "fixed bars" on non-mobile for as long as I remember: Main Menu Bar, Title Bar, ooh and now a "Tab Bar" which is just the modern version of Windows MDI, maybe Windows MDI, Navigation bar(s) which sometimes takes up a quarter of the screen height I kid you not, the Bookmarks Bar which gets hidden the first time I open the browser and all corporate links get deleted what a pain.
Including your "bar" in the contents and letting it scroll away might be easiest, and the author noted medium's clever idea.
Re: The Scroll Up Bar
#30Fun pattern, but is it more useful? I think its hyperbolic to call losing 160px of reading space on top of a desktop browser a "nightmare". Something a user can see all the time has greater affordances than something that is hidden. Especially if that something is as essential as navigation. Honestly, I think this is more style than usability.