

The Death of the Scrollbar - shawndumas
http://gigaom.com/apple/ios-os-x-and-the-death-of-the-scrollbar/

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quanticle
Am I the only one who sees this as a step backwards in usability? I like
having the scrollbar as a visual indication of how far down I've gone in
content.

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nlawalker
Not just that - the scrollbar also lets you scroll at any speed you want (just
grab and drag), and lets you instantly jump to an arbitrary point in the
document you are looking at. "Shuffling" through content is nice if you are
reading top to bottom, but it's hard to beat a scrollbar if you're jumping
around.

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joebadmo
And don't forget an immediate visual indicator of the total length of the
document.

I feel like scroll bars have really matured to the point of being almost
perfect. The only things I can think of to really change (looking at the
scroll bars on this window right now) are: 1. disappear when content fits in
the window instead of grayed out scroll bars; and 2. Get rid of the vestigial
up and down arrow buttons.

Last time I saw something really horrible done with scroll bars was in Google
Wave. What a disaster.

Here I feel like Apple seems to be having issues because they're trying to
form a consistency between iOS and OSX, but there's an inherent tension in
that iOS is a direct manipulation metaphor, and OSX can't really be.

It goes both ways. On iOS, they're running out of input bandwidth that's
strictly metaphorical, so they're now resorting to gestures, which are out of
metaphor and not discoverable.

On OSX Lion, scrolling is immediately inconsistent with iOS, because, of
course, it's not a direct manipulation metaphor, so there's already an extra
level of abstraction, and you scroll with two fingers instead of with one.
Because of that level of abstraction, the direction is basically arbitrary,
though I suppose it makes it slightly more consistent with iOS, in that you're
(in a +1 remove) pulling on the content like in iOS, instead of pulling on the
scroll bar.

But not showing the scroll bar by default is especially weird to me, in that
the constraint for iOS--screen real estate--doesn't really exist on a desktop
environment. Why not provide that information, then? Consistency over
usability is my guess.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

~~~
quanticle
_2\. Get rid of the vestigial up and down arrow buttons._

I _like_ having those buttons. I think it was a step backwards when Chrome for
Linux abandoned them. Those buttons don't take up much space, and they're
convenient for when you have to scroll a little bit in a long document.

~~~
joebadmo
Interesting, I really didn't think anyone used them anymore.

Just curious: do you not have a scroll wheel? I just tested, and it scrolls
the same amount (WinXP (work)). The arrow keys on the keyboard also scroll the
same amount.

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quanticle
I use the scroll wheel at home, but at work, the scroll wheel is worn down on
my mouse, so often it'll skip and scroll 2 or more increments when I only want
it to scroll once. As for arrow keys, well, my hand is on the mouse anyway and
I'd rather keep it there than scroll on the keyboard and go back to the mouse.

~~~
joebadmo
So it sounds like you use it as a last resort because of a broken scroll
wheel. Isn't that an edge case?

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quanticle
Sort of, but I know plenty of less-experienced computer users who still use
the buttons. Older people, especially, may not have the finger dexterity to
manipulate the scrollwheel with the necessary precision.

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bergie
I can't remember when I actually used a scrollbar for scrolling. I instead
scroll with two fingers on the trackpad, or with arrow keys.

So for me traditional scrollbars are a waste of space. But I still like to
have an indication of where I am in the document, which is what almost every
mobile platform out there does.

Here is an example how they redid scrollbars in latest Ubuntu:
<http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/615>

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nametoremember
I use the scroll bar all the time when I don't have my mouse.

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delinka
I always prefered page up/down and arrow keys to manipulate _content_ long
before I knew I was manipulating the content. Mousing is just to inefficient
in most cases.

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nametoremember
Now that you say that I just realised I use my arrow keys and pgup and pgdown
keys a lot! I didn't think of them when I commented.

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jordanekay
Mac OS X Lion also has the option to revert the scrolling direction to the old
behavior.

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natfriedman
Bold of them to reverse the scrolling gesture in Lion. Not sure I'd like that.

I don't think it's just a matter of habituation. It seems like it's physically
easier to pull my fingers toward me on the trackpad, than to push them away.

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jonathansizz
Once something reaches a level of maturity that approximates perfection, any
significant changes to it will clearly make the thing worse. This isn't a
problem if you have the discipline to simply not make changes, but
unfortunately this is what GUI designers are paid to do (and it's also more
fun than being a maintenance programmer).

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swift
You seem to be implying that modern GUIs have reached a level of maturity that
approximates perfection. I really think that's a bit of a stretch.

Why would there be so much effort among technical people to avoid using GUIs,
either by using programs that run in a terminal or by memorizing hotkeys, if
our current GUIs are perfect for the tasks we want them to perform? I doubt
you'd get non-technical people to agree that today's GUIs are perfect, either;
in my experience, they find them frustrating at best.

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mason55
So does this mean that you will not be able to use a regular mouse with Lion?
I guess a Mighty Mouse will work but what about people who want to use 3rd
party mice with multiple buttons? Gamers and designer are SOL?

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ddagradi
How is this the case? How many 3rd-party mice don't have a scrollwheel?
(Especially gaming mice!)

The other question is "What is the default behavior?". If I plug a mouse
without a scrollwheel into my iMac, do scrollbars show up by default? It seems
a sensible way for them to handle that case, but we'll see.

~~~
jordanekay
There is the option to base scroll bar appearance on your input device.

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mynameishere
I programmed industrial touchscreens a long time ago (my first job) and
implemented scrolling more-or-less like that. Not really a big deal.

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aj700
[http://blog.pilotmoon.com/post/4041089648/scroll-reverser-
ge...](http://blog.pilotmoon.com/post/4041089648/scroll-reverser-get-in-
practice-for-lion)

you can get in practice for this with this little program for snow leopard

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aw3c2
I used it in my browser if I have to scroll a loooong way. Can't think of an
easier way to do that.

