Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scrollbar Blindness

svenkadak.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 575 posts

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#281

Post by saagarjha »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #219
missblit wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a "Mitsumi Standard Scroll" mouse that has a scroll button that you can hold down instead of a wheel that you have to keep spinning. It's so much easier on the fingers that I'm amazed I haven't been able to find it anywhere else.

Often you can middle-click-drag to scroll. That is click the scrollwheel down like a button, hold, and you should get a scroll icon appear; move the mouse up or down (sometimes left-right as well) and it will scroll. Some mice (Microsoft ones IME) have horribly clunky middle-click, at least the Logitech mice I normally use are softer with less travel, which I prefer. Not all apps seem to allow middle-click on Win10.…

Of course, macOS doesn't do this.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#282

Post by lalalandland »

jakub_g wrote: post #71

If you read between the lines, you should understand that the root cause of issue is the macOS developer monoculture. All you need is one Windows or Linux-based developer in your team to catch those kind of issues. But so many dev teams are macOS-only those days, whereas, apart from US and 2-3 other rich countries, 80%+ or even more of actual desktop users are Windows-based. (There are many other problems with macOS…

See also resent thread about Zappo where there was lots of talk about customer service. I think a solution would be that designers and engineers should have as part of their job to sit in customer service to support their products. Preferably for weeks on end to learn from their customers. Otherwise they will continue to produce bad solutions.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24268522

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#283

Post by saagarjha »

madeofpalk wrote: post #152
elliekelly wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infinite scroll often make it nearly impossible to click on the site's privacy policy or terms of service in the page footer without going into dev tools. Whenever I come across that issue I wonder whether it's a feature or a bug.

Does this actually happen frequently?

More often then I'd like–anecdotally, about once a month or so.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#284

Post by fizzled »

reaperducer wrote: post #163
supernova87a wrote: post #18

I have to pile onto the criticism of the hidden scroll bars, and other similar features (like the hidden buttons of PDF viewers now, such as in Chrome). Discoverability is a problem. For anyone (cough, elderly parents) who aren't adept at discovering hidden features, these things can be utterly mind-boggling and frustrating. Even I was stumped for a good minute the first time trying to print/save/download a PDF when…

For anyone (cough, elderly parents) who aren't adept at discovering hidden features You don't even have to be elderly. The 20-somethings in the office (pre-pandemic) had no idea that on an inconsistent smattering of Apple apps, if you pull down, a hidden search bar magically appears. How did that conversation go? Dev: Where do you want the search bar to go? Designer: Put it somewhere that no one will ever see it, or…

On the plus side, we don't really know what the limits of bad UX/UI patterns are until we cross that line. No one can deny that UX/UI patterns are in the Cambrian Explosion phase (for at least the past 15 years and going strong!), and it will take time for the more robust evolutionary designs to emerge.

Example: Consider the number of articles on HN devoted to seemingly minute detail, e.g.: whether or not an input element should use a placeholder that vanishes, one that shrinks into the upper left corner when the user starts to enter text or a label abve the input element. We're still figuring this out...

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#285

Post by saagarjha »

bradstewart wrote: post #90
rkapsoro wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on which pointing device you have installed.

This is the kicker, thanks. I'm using a (non-Apple) mouse and changing the settings didn't seem to have any effect.

You should still be able to make it disappear if you change it to "When scrolling".

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#286

Post by danso »

reaperducer wrote: post #163
supernova87a wrote: post #18

I have to pile onto the criticism of the hidden scroll bars, and other similar features (like the hidden buttons of PDF viewers now, such as in Chrome). Discoverability is a problem. For anyone (cough, elderly parents) who aren't adept at discovering hidden features, these things can be utterly mind-boggling and frustrating. Even I was stumped for a good minute the first time trying to print/save/download a PDF when…

For anyone (cough, elderly parents) who aren't adept at discovering hidden features You don't even have to be elderly. The 20-somethings in the office (pre-pandemic) had no idea that on an inconsistent smattering of Apple apps, if you pull down, a hidden search bar magically appears. How did that conversation go? Dev: Where do you want the search bar to go? Designer: Put it somewhere that no one will ever see it, or…

My suspicion is that Apple’s design mentality is to strive toward the minimalist ideal of an interface in which everything necessary fits on one (phone) screen, and users are acclimated to ask Siri for anything/everything else, e.g. “Siri show me a print/download dialog”

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#287

Post by fizzled »

eatingCake wrote: post #240
Klathmon wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a windows feature like this which I hate with a passion. If you grab a window and shake it side to side, it minimizes all open windows... So sometimes I'll grab a window to move to my left monitor, decide instead I want it on the right one, and suddenly everything is gone and I now need to go open every single window one at a time. It even took me months to understand that the shaking was what caused it. I wo…

That thing is the worst! HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced set DisallowShaking dword to 1

THANK YOU! I had no idea what was going on, or how to describe it. I wouldn't have thought of using the word "shaking". There was a time when every feature you needed was visible (yes, I had crazy FVWM bars for a while), but "discoverability" is becoming increasingly frustrating and annoying.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#288

Post by saagarjha »

formerly_proven wrote: post #48
spideymans wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea on macOS, the scroll bar is less of a scroll bar, and more of a scroll indicator. There just isn’t any reason to click on the scroll bar if you have a trackpad. Notably, when you connect a traditional mouse, the scroll bar automatically becomes thicker (easier to click) and always visible, as mice users do have a reason to click/drag the scroll bar. Seems like Apple had this in mind

> Yea on macOS, the scroll bar is less of a scroll bar, and more of a scroll indicator. There just isn’t any reason to click on the scroll bar if you have a trackpad. I've seen so many web pages whose "fold line" just aligned so neatly with the end of my viewport that without the scrollbar being visible I would've just closed the page, being disappointed that it's just a meaningless hero page with no content. Similar…

I love pages that have CSS to make the first section precisely the size of the viewport…and then have some sort of arrow indicating that you should scroll down to see more content.

Re: Scrollbar Blindness

#290

Post by appleflaxen »

Klathmon wrote: post #217
baggy_trough wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse than undiscoverable features are land mine features, where some subtle gesture triggers a wild and unwanted mode change. Extra credit if the mode change is hard to get out of.

There's a windows feature like this which I hate with a passion. If you grab a window and shake it side to side, it minimizes all open windows... So sometimes I'll grab a window to move to my left monitor, decide instead I want it on the right one, and suddenly everything is gone and I now need to go open every single window one at a time. It even took me months to understand that the shaking was what caused it. I wo…

OMG. you just solved a problem I've had for years and couldn't figure out wtf was happening, or even how to google for it. THANK YOU!
Post reply on HN