
Space.js – HTML-driven narrative 3D-scrolling - gothep
http://www.slashie.org/space.js/
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_Adam
Assuming this isn't an April Fools joke...

This kind of interface creates a terrible user experience. I've seen them
before, and they always suck. The main issue is that you remove all context
from the interaction. I don't know where I am relative to the entirety of the
content. Furthermore, I can't jump to the point that I want.

It's disorienting and infuriating, and after about 10 seconds of exercising my
middle finger (in multiple ways), I close the tab and add the site to my
mental list of "examples of shitty UX".

Fortunately, this isn't the first such example, so I can provide solid
evidence of how horrible this concept is. Ironically, it's the Famo.us Angular
integration documentation...

[https://famo.us/integrations/angular/#/1](https://famo.us/integrations/angular/#/1)

~~~
kenbellows
Not disagreeing with your overall point regarding the usefulness UX of this
sort of interface, but unlike the Famo.us demo, Space.js seems to maintain the
scroll bar on the right window edge, which allows you to keep a sense of where
you are within the document and to jump where you want within it. Also, the
down arrow alleviates the strain on your middle finger nicely, as will
clicking and dragging the scroll bar.

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krebby
There are ways of doing scroll-based storytelling right but this ain't it.
This library does have the right idea that scrolling should be continuous, but
if you over- or underscroll the content you get trapped in a weird middle
ground of a tween between two states, and it's frustrating to exactly line up
your viewport to the content so it's readable.

Mike Bostock wrote a pretty good post about scroll-based storytelling last
year: [http://bost.ocks.org/mike/scroll/](http://bost.ocks.org/mike/scroll/)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8551724](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8551724)

~~~
bengali3
Heres a great storytelling example from
[http://bost.ocks.org/mike/](http://bost.ocks.org/mike/)

[http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/10/27/south-
china-](http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/10/27/south-china-) sea/

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Mithaldu
Aside from the fact this hits Poe's Law so hard that it is impossible to tell
whether it's an April Fools joke, i am pleased that it degrades somewhat
gracefully without JS:

[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10190786/no-
js.png](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10190786/no-js.png)

And becomes downright usable and pleasant without CSS:

[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10190786/no-
css.png](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10190786/no-css.png)

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aridiculous
These comments are very narrow-minded and hostile.

This is wonderful execution. It's really hard to create something that's so
easy to use. Its API looks surprisingly elegant.

As for the use cases and UX, remember that there's many types of projects.
This could be used in a way that helps the UX for some kinds of experiences.

Just because this would be bad for your work, or the sites you like to go to,
doesn't mean it's not a perfect fit for certain experiences.

Kudos.

~~~
Aeolun
I don't question the technical achievement. This is just a prime example of
'Being so concerned with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to
consider whether they should.'

Also, even if I were to want to use it, it's too heavily dependent on scroll
speed. It's completely unusable on my computer unless I use the down arrow.

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Mahn
It's definitively an interesting demo, but not the kind of thing one looks
forward to when trying to scroll on a page with the purpose of reading it.

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draugadrotten
Great work and useful examples that shows how much richer the web has become
since the dark old days when <blink> and <marquee> was the only options to
make your web page eye-catching.

~~~
blackle
You mean annoying? There are better ways to make a website stand out than to
override default scroll behaviour. Websites like these tend to make me queasy,
since I expect the screen to move down, not forward.

If you're going to make transitions like these, they should be initiated by
something else, like the keyboard or buttons. The scroll bar was specifically
designed for browsing vertical documents, not rocketing through spacetime.

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wahsd
I am sure this could be used in creative ways, but how is this not essentially
manual stop-motion video? It's amazing that technology has progressed so much
that now I can manually flip through stop-motion visualization. Let's call it
a flip-book.

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ape4
April Fools?

~~~
delluminatus
Definitely. Try clicking through to the article:

 _We generally use web pages as our canvases and paint content on the x– and
y-axises. This is our tangible abstraction of reality. Here we are going to
explore what happens when we introduce z-axis to content presentation. Instead
of stripping down reality to a plane, we are going to simplify it, keeping our
three physical dimensions but only their minimal essence._

~~~
untog
It reads as a joke until you see it on a startup's about page.

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thejaredhooper
I've been thinking about implementing a sort of slideshow like this.

I could definitely see this being extended, contained within a frame and used
(by intercepting and mimicking scroll actions) in order to present a slideshow
in a smooth, consistent manner.

By itself, it's novel. But extended, I could see a few uses for it.

Interesting idea, degrades pretty well (for text only), and I enjoyed
scrolling through smoothly with middle-click.

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extc
[http://bartaz.github.io/impress.js/](http://bartaz.github.io/impress.js/)

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matthewrhoden1
I don't have smooth scrolling, so these types of things are always jumpy and
not very enjoyable.

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Bumbaclotmon
It isn't as good as this one, that happens to also implement acceleration:
[http://okmove.tumblr.com/](http://okmove.tumblr.com/) (and it was made years
ago by the folks who designed soylent packaging).

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chaosfactor
It's funny because I actually kind of like it.

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bpg_92
Well, it is called Space.js and in the main page it says: No js required. I am
missing something here?

~~~
thebouv
I think he means no writing of JS required to use it. Include the library, and
just use HTML to do the rest.

I agree though, bad use of saying "no js required".

