Who Killed the Scrollbar?

Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by novok on Friday October 25, 2019 @03:33PM (#21358447)

The reason why scrollbars are not a first class UI widget in mobile UIs is because they are finger based, which means every manipulable widget needs to be finger sized. Making scroll bars finger sized takes up way too much screen space in mobile UI, so they were regulated to a passive progress bar indicator and the scrollbar actions were moved into swipe gestures instead. With that change you lose the ability to precisely skip around your location, probably because a desktop usage study showed that most people didn't use the the scroll bar much once scroll wheel mice were available.

Scroll bars only work with precision mice actions, and now desktop UX is legacy UX, mobile UX concepts enroach onto desktop UX, because developers do not like to create special cases, because that is more work and thus more $$$.

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by JohnFen on Friday October 25, 2019 @03:44PM (#21358549)

> The reason why scrollbars are not a first class UI widget in mobile UIs is because they are finger based, which means every manipulable widget needs to be finger sized

And yet, several mobile apps I use routinely have found a way to make it work reasonably well. They use a slim line of a scrollbar to indicate where you are, and if you touch the scrollbar then a larger finger-friendly handle appears which can be used like a traditional scrollbar.

But I'm much more forgiving of UI compromises that are forced by the limitations of mobile devices. It's when those same compromises are used on the desktop that I have a problem -- that's just degrading the UX for no good reason.

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by novok on Friday October 25, 2019 @03:53PM (#21358619)

Testing on my iOS device, I don't think it's an app thing, but UIKit standard thing that comes with scrollviews. The bar doesn't become finger thick, but it's still usable. I've been using iOS devices for a long time, so it shows you how hidden it is.

I agree it's sloppy on desktops, but it helps to understand the reasons why the sloppyness happens. Kind of like electron apps :p

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by deergomoo on Friday October 25, 2019 @04:12PM (#21358786)

I believe it’s new in iOS 13

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by redwall_hp on Friday October 25, 2019 @07:15PM (#21360159)

Way back in 2008, the Music app made use of this sort of feature (baked into UIKit). Table views can be "indexed," meaning you get A, B, C, etc down the side, and can swipe on it to move faster down the list.

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by saagarjha on Friday October 25, 2019 @09:01PM (#21360810)

Contacts still has this.

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by ken on Friday October 25, 2019 @04:55PM (#21359166)

I've heard this from several sources, but never been able to make it work. What apps, and what version of iOS? Is it new in iOS 13?

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by bobbylarrybobby on Friday October 25, 2019 @08:13PM (#21360521)

It's pretty much everywhere you can see the scrollbar. Just press on the scrollbar for a second (so that it seems deliberate), then drag it around.

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by comex on Saturday October 26, 2019 @01:22AM (#21361880)

It is new in iOS 13, for the record.

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by 0xffff2 on Friday October 25, 2019 @03:46PM (#21358562)

Scrollbars as a passive visual indicator are still extremely useful though.

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by underwater on Friday October 25, 2019 @04:33PM (#21358978)

Samsung has implemented scroll bars in their browser and other Android apps and it works perfectly fine without being clunky or obtrusive.

Touch scroll bars don't need to be precise because most of the time we can just scroll normally. But it's nice to have an ability to jump to a specific part of the document in a consistent way.

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by lilyball on Friday October 25, 2019 @04:23PM (#21358888)

iOS 13 has actually made the scrollbar into a first-class UI widget. You have to long-press on the scroll thumb while it's visible, but doing so gives you direct manipulation over it.

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by betterbeehome on Friday October 25, 2019 @04:32PM (#21358966)

Thanks for pointing this out. Don’t think I would have figured that out.

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by LeoPanthera on Friday October 25, 2019 @09:15PM (#21360900)

"Don’t think I would have figured that out."

This, unfortunately, describes half the features of iOS. Apple is deeply in love with the undiscoverable UI - and then NOT DOCUMENTING it.

Drives me absolutely crazy.

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by lilyball on Friday October 25, 2019 @10:18PM (#21361233)

This one is actually in the iOS 13 release notes you see when selecting Learn More in the software update screen.

That said, I stumbled across it by accident first.

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Re:Who Killed the Scrollbar? by webreac on Friday October 25, 2019 @05:08PM (#21359267)

I work on a desktop. Often a 40" display, in fullscreen. The thin scrollbar is really painfull to use.

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