Was I the only one expecting a comments section to appear once I reached the bottom?
Don't reinvent the scrollbar
71–80 of 172 posts
Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's my preferred reading environment, but I hate that apple made this decision, because, as my sibling commenter here noted, it's outright user hostile. Apple never really totally understood the "visibility" requirement of usable interfaces. They like to hide things to make them look pretty, and it only leads to better advertising, not better interfaces. Thankfully there's still a setting to always show scrollbars.…
I guess it comes down to personal taste. I for one like that they hide away, and I can bring them back just by holding down for two fingers on my trackpad. Thankfully you can make scroll bars persistent in System Preferences.
The "personal taste" argument comes up a lot in usability conversations. I find it to be incredibly weak. I might personally prefer to walk blindfolded across busy roadways. But that doesn't make it broadly easy or advisable.
It's just simply a bad decision. There shouldn't be a preference, it should just be on by default, end of story. It only makes sense on iPads.
The fact that it's auto-hide by default means that most mac owners will just simply have their machines set to auto-hide the scrollbar, and very likely have no idea that a setting exists- Then blame it all on the content owners for making a bad/hard to use site. (especially if they decide they want a scrollable pane with OS specific scrollbars on it)
To expand a little bit, even something as seemingly arbitrary, like driving on the right or left side of the road, is not a matter of preference. If you pick the wrong one in a certain country, you can equally get yourself killed as with your other more obviously wrong "preferences". There is value in having everything work in a standard way.
Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar
#73I dislike scrolling. I dislike scrollbars. All.
Re-imagine content. Eliminate scrolling. Keep content represented on the screen. Elegent, progressively granular navigation on the screen.
I love when a scrollbar handle thins to represent the proportion of content on the screen and shits the usability bed.
You have only so many words left to say or type. Use less. Live/Say more. Condense information to fit the medium. Lose you paradigm.
Writers are paid by the word and we pay by the byte. Writers shit the net. Don't waste my life with words. Get to the point. We're dying here.
Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's my preferred reading environment, but I hate that apple made this decision, because, as my sibling commenter here noted, it's outright user hostile. Apple never really totally understood the "visibility" requirement of usable interfaces. They like to hide things to make them look pretty, and it only leads to better advertising, not better interfaces. Thankfully there's still a setting to always show scrollbars.…
I actually agree with you--I prefer for the scrollbar to remain visible. In my preferred reading environment, a Windows PC running Firefox, it does remain visible. I like clean design, but not at the expense of function. I am firmly of the opinion that too much functionality has been sacrificed from modern user interfaces at the altar of simplicity. I'm nevertheless of the point of view that the content author should…
In principle I agree with you. In this case apple's decision causes actual problems with content. Putting stuff in a scrollable iframe, or overflow scroll pane now involves carefully instructing people on how to scroll it. Or you force your own custom scrollbars. Or just not have scrollable panes-- you could argue that is a good thing, but sometimes they are unavoidable. Like, for instance, here on HN if someone happens to post an extremely long code segment.
on an ipad use two fingers to scroll it.
Do you get my point? Is the above a problem for HN or for Apple or for the User to puzzle out?
Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar
#75I was nodding along, when suddenly... > One alternative is to ignore iOS and OS X users. But that’s not very nice. There are many scrolling libraries available that you can use, such as NiceScroll. > Or you can just make your own indicator like the one seen at the very start of the article. Just don’t use a horizontal indicator for vertical progression :) No! Do not do this. Just stop. Stop reinventing and reimplemen…
As unpopular as it might be I think he's got a point about this too. it's just that it's not very clearly articulated.
At the end of the day, customers and others browsing your site are unlikely to understand why there's no visual indication on their mac, and why you didn't put one on your site.Sooo.. if you're forced to put a visual indicator, at the very least least, make it vertical for page scrolling.
(and also, thanks for nothing, Apple UI)
Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar
#76> Maybe there are better ways of monetising than forcing >multiple pages of ads down your users throats? :) If only life were so black and white.
Yeah according to advertisers, ads save lifes after all! (AMBER)
Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar
#77It reminds me of the volume control in iPad some time ago, it was horizontal under the movie, it looked like the time bar.
Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar
#78While I hate that Apple hides the scrollbar when not in use for the main page, the new iOS-inspired scrollbar looks much nicer when designing scrolling divs inside the page. [Note: never said anything about custom scrollbars; just that websites with scrolling divs tend to look better on OSX]
Are you a mouse user or do you use a touchpad? I have a theory that the new OSX scrollbars only really work for touchpad users and everyone with a mouse hates them ;)
Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar
#79Two assumptions: * horizontal progress for vertical content is bad * infinite scroll is better than pages/tabs/whatever Just saying "poor natural mapping" doesn't mean horizontal progress is wrong and just saying "why would you" doesn't make pages wrong. I'd like to see data to support those assumptions. On infinite scroll I'd bet horizontal progress has minuscule negative impact on usability vs vertical progress. On…
As for “horizontal progress for vertical content is bad”, I’m pretty sure that’s right, but that’s mainly relying on my intuition. If I think about the concept and scroll my page up and down while imagining a horizontal scroll bar, my mind just rebels and thinks “this is not right”. It’s just obvious to me that a scroll bar should be vertical when you scroll vertically.
I can also offer some reasoning: when the scroll bar is vertical, it moves in the same direction as the direction of your scrolling movement on the mouse. This makes it easier to mentally connect your fingers’ scrolling movement to the scrolling on the screen, which makes the device use easier and more intuitive. In the case of iOS and OS X 10.7 and later, your finger movement is in the same direction as the content rather than the scroll bar, but it’s still something on the screen moving with your fingers. But a horizontal scroll bar moving when you push your fingers vertically is too abstract a concept for your mind to intuitively grasp, so it’s harder to use.
Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually agree with you--I prefer for the scrollbar to remain visible. In my preferred reading environment, a Windows PC running Firefox, it does remain visible. I like clean design, but not at the expense of function. I am firmly of the opinion that too much functionality has been sacrificed from modern user interfaces at the altar of simplicity. I'm nevertheless of the point of view that the content author should…
In principle I agree with you. In this case apple's decision causes actual problems with content. Putting stuff in a scrollable iframe, or overflow scroll pane now involves carefully instructing people on how to scroll it. Or you force your own custom scrollbars. Or just not have scrollable panes-- you could argue that is a good thing, but sometimes they are unavoidable. Like, for instance, here on HN if someone happ…
I do get your point, and it's a good one. My opinion about allowing the user the luxury of having selected their preferred reading environment isn't so inflexible to say that you shouldn't afford users some concessions in a scenario such as this.
On my PC, I of course do see a scrollbar. In fact, I probably would not at first even realize that I need to instruct viewers on other platforms to interact with the content in any unusual manner. But once aware of it, given the capability to design my content differently to avoid the situation described, I would go with that. Failing that option, I would probably just put instructions in as you've done here.
I would fairly steadfastly refuse to implement my own scrollbar functionality because I'd likely fail to implement that in a manner all users on all devices would understand intuitively.
For the majority of scenarios, the browsers' default behavior will match the users' expectations and they will be able to consume the content I've created in the fashion with which they are accustomed.
As an aside, this conversation reminds me that legacy versions of IE (and maybe current versions; I've not checked) allowed one to affect the appearance of the browser's scrollbar through CSS.