Also, the up/down buttons are disappearing in most UIs, in some cases providing no alternative to scroll up/down a notch.
Yeah, terrible scroll bar UI these days is a PIA.
Scrollbars are becoming a problem
41–50 of 944 posts
Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem
#42Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem
#43Maybe the solution is to improve the accessibility tools, not hack scrollbars. Assistive technologies should not just try to emulate the computer, but try to also use their specific strengths. For example, shouldn't eyetrackers be able to use blink or eyeroll gestures, or have a virtual "scroll down" "button" (focus target) underneath the screen?
> Maybe the solution is to improve the accessibility tools, not hack scrollbars I doubt you meant it, but your post reads like you're advocating less-abled people purchase (often expensive) eye-trackers instead of making scrollbars generally more usable for everyone.
The article specifically mentions eye tracker users as an affected group.
Everybody who tries to actually use the scroll bar as a handle (rather than a non-interactive position indicator for use with the other scrolling methods) would have a problem, because they're not really meant to be used that way and most people don't use them that way (which is why they keep shrinking).
Unfortunately the article doesn't mention how people who don't use an eye tracker, can't use a scroll wheel/touchscreen-dragging (or adapted replacement for either!), but could use a "normal-sized" scrollbar, are actually interacting with their devices. I imagine that overlapping group to be rather small.
Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it ironic that in order for your comment to be accessible the reader must lookup “a11y” to find that it means “accessibility”.
Relatedly, "i18n" is hard for non-native speakers to understand too, how ironically apt.
It's hard for native speakers too. Numerical contractions aren't part of normal English (i.e they don't seem to exist outside of IT).
Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem
#45You know what's an accessibility problem for a lot of people over 40? White text on a dark background. I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing people advocate for making web pages readable for people my age.
Yeah, opening up the inspector and updating the author's CSS made it readable for me, but made the shell script unreadable.
Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem
#46I run into so many websites that I think are completely broken because they have a scollable popover or some other weird element, but it's impossible to tell that there is content because the scroll bar is hidden on this small interior frame. Absolutely infuriating. I blame iOS and macOS for encouraging this insanity and starting the fashion trend, and tangentially whoever pushed along this whole "flat" UI trend that…
In the context of the original iPhone at least, hiding the scrollbar when not scrolling makes some amount of sense… when your screen is 3.5" in size and your goal is to render content with "desktop" fidelity, there's not a whole lot of room for a scrollbar, plus most people aren't going to be interacting with the scrollbar.
For desktop OSes where the smallest screen being used is much larger on the other hand there's not much of a good reason to hide them.
Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem
#47Once again I have to give firefox credit for giving users the tools in about:config to disable this. It's cute fluff at best and annoying/abusive at worst. The browser's UI should more or less be fully off the table when it comes to what a website can change, and that includes scrollbars.
And on the flip side, Chrome - just had the biggest laugh when I got to this point:
"Imagine being able to configure anything useful in chrome ever."
Overall, a very well written article - kudos to the author.
(I've made the switch to FF again myself after Edge just got too annoying with their constant nagging about Bing search and other features. And the prompt to restore tabs. Just STFU and stop it already.)
Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem
#48Maybe the solution is to improve the accessibility tools, not hack scrollbars. Assistive technologies should not just try to emulate the computer, but try to also use their specific strengths. For example, shouldn't eyetrackers be able to use blink or eyeroll gestures, or have a virtual "scroll down" "button" (focus target) underneath the screen?
Maybe instead of adding ramps, we could build wheelchairs that can climb stairs.
Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem
#49My fellow readers, do not succumb to the heresies expressed in that blog post! Clearly, the future is in eye tracking data streamed to the cloud, where an AI will predict the scroll target, to be revealed by the application. Most cheerfully, this will not only be a subscription based service, but will also solve the problems with ad attention. ;-)
Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem
#50I don’t think this is UX/UI designers not knowing/caring about accessibility. It’s their bosses saying the tiny scrollbar is preferred because it sells 20% more due to the aesthetics being better. Who cares about the 0.5% of disabled people that weren’t likely to buy your app anyway. Same for browsers, FF may care about accessibility, but they won’t lose the browser wars (bit of a moot point by now, but eh) because m…
Perhaps, but I think a large part of this is designers assuming the scrollbar isn't actually for scrolling anymore, and treating is as simply a position indicator. Which for users who exlusively use a trackpad/touchscreen/scrollwheel for scrolling, it is. Ignorance tends to be the largest cause of accessibility issues.
It would be extremely useful for touchscreen users as well, a scrollbar lets you scroll a whole document (and go near specific points) in an instant instead of swiping like an idiot for a minute.
And for trackpad and scrollwheel users it's the same, I absolutely adore chiral scrolling but you still need to use the scrollbars sometimes (or often).
All these things only replace the arrows of scrollbars (enhancing them with some speed control), but the arrows are just a tiny and stupid aspect of scrollbars (I don't remember ever seeing someone using them).