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This makes no sense to me. Why can't I look at the scrollbar(s) and see where I am in the document without scrolling? Why is it important that this informatio

This makes no sense to me. Why can't I look at the scrollbar(s) and see where I am in the document without scrolling? Why is it important that this information be hidden from me? The scrollbar doesn't just let you know that you can scroll, it shows you the size of the content in relation to the size of your viewing window, and it shows you the location of the viewing window within the overall content, and it does this at a glance. A scrollbar is an extremely efficient use of screen space. Don't hide things from the user that provide the user with information.

Kranar 6y ago
You can do that to, moving your mouse over the window reveals the scrollbars, as does scrolling. The reason we hide the scrollbars is because scrollbars are not the one and only consideration that we make when designing a page, information density also matters and so we have to weigh these options together and conduct user testing to see what the impact of various design decisions are. Certainly there is a vocal minority of people who are dead set that scrollbars must always be visible, and we can respect their choice, but we also have to optimize our software for the majority of our users who would rather see more content. The balance we went with was if you want to see the scrollbar, you need to perform an action that engages it, which is moving your mouse over the scrollable area, or performing a scroll operation. We have other things too that we have to consider, like until the mouse approaches the scrollbar it appears very thin and when the mouse is within a certain distance it expands to allow it to moved. Will every single user like this approach? No of course not. But based on our user testing, it optimized for metrics that we care about.
- toast0 6y ago
  > You can do that to, moving your mouse over the window reveals the scrollbars, as does scrolling. The problem with revealing scrollbars it that they then obscure whatever was shown there before. (Or reflow the page, dear god). If you use that space, well you can't see it when you're scrolling; and if you don't use that space why not show the scrollbar the whole time?
- gsich 6y ago
  Name me 3 websites/application where hiding the scrollbar is used for more content. Please don't use examples where is's obvious you can scroll. (ie Timeseries/tables).
crazygringo 6y ago
> Don't hide things from the user that provide the user with information. We already hide 99.9999% of things that provide the user with information. Thank god, because the real maxim should be don't overload the user with information. We try to show only the things that show the most useful information at the times it's needed, and hide them the rest of the time. Scroll bars used to be necessary primarily for scrolling. Once people switched to scroll wheels and trackpad gliding this the primary use case disappeared. Knowing where in the document you are isn't usually that useful. You started at the top and already know how much you've read. For the infrequent moments where you really do need to know, just jiggle the scroll and you can see it instantly. It's a very elegant solution. It really does work.
- basscomm 6y ago
  > We already hide 99.9999% of things that provide the user with information. Thank god, because the real maxim should be don't overload the user with information > We try to show only the things that show the most useful information at the times it's needed, and hide them the rest of the time. Surely there's a middle ground between showing a user everything and showing a user practically nothing and then trying to guess what they might need. Software that tries to figure out what I want instead of just letting me just pick what I want is, frankly, annoying. How does software handle a situation where an option I might want is hidden because I have a use case that the developers didn't anticipate? > Knowing where in the document you are isn't usually that useful. Disagree. If I'm reading a document on the Internet, I probably don't know how long it is before I start reading it (and those ridiculous tags that say an article is XX minutes long are almost always so wrong that they're useless for me). If I'm scrolling with my scroll wheel, I'm probably not paying attention to the scroll bar. If I've been reading said document for fifteen minutes and I want to know approximately how far into the document I've read (and if I have any hope of finishing it up in the time before I have to do something else) the position of the box in the scroll bar is a great way for me estimate that at a glance. Jiggling the page or moving the mouse all the way to the side or doing some other incantation to make it appear completely breaks my flow reading the document and can make me easily lose my place (especially if I'm in the middle of a paragraph). A quick glance at the scroll bar also breaks the flow, but not quite as badly, and it's a lot easier to resume where I left off.

Kranar 6y ago

You can do that to, moving your mouse over the window reveals the scrollbars, as does scrolling. The reason we hide the scrollbars is because scrollbars are not the one and only consideration that we make when designing a page, information density also matters and so we have to weigh these options together and conduct user testing to see what the impact of various design decisions are. Certainly there is a vocal minority of people who are dead set that scrollbars must always be visible, and we can respect their choice, but we also have to optimize our software for the majority of our users who would rather see more content. The balance we went with was if you want to see the scrollbar, you need to perform an action that engages it, which is moving your mouse over the scrollable area, or performing a scroll operation. We have other things too that we have to consider, like until the mouse approaches the scrollbar it appears very thin and when the mouse is within a certain distance it expands to allow it to moved. Will every single user like this approach? No of course not. But based on our user testing, it optimized for metrics that we care about.

toast0 6y ago
> You can do that to, moving your mouse over the window reveals the scrollbars, as does scrolling. The problem with revealing scrollbars it that they then obscure whatever was shown there before. (Or reflow the page, dear god). If you use that space, well you can't see it when you're scrolling; and if you don't use that space why not show the scrollbar the whole time?
gsich 6y ago
Name me 3 websites/application where hiding the scrollbar is used for more content. Please don't use examples where is's obvious you can scroll. (ie Timeseries/tables).

crazygringo 6y ago

> Don't hide things from the user that provide the user with information. We already hide 99.9999% of things that provide the user with information. Thank god, because the real maxim should be don't overload the user with information. We try to show only the things that show the most useful information at the times it's needed, and hide them the rest of the time. Scroll bars used to be necessary primarily for scrolling. Once people switched to scroll wheels and trackpad gliding this the primary use case disappeared. Knowing where in the document you are isn't usually that useful. You started at the top and already know how much you've read. For the infrequent moments where you really do need to know, just jiggle the scroll and you can see it instantly. It's a very elegant solution. It really does work.

basscomm 6y ago
> We already hide 99.9999% of things that provide the user with information. Thank god, because the real maxim should be don't overload the user with information > We try to show only the things that show the most useful information at the times it's needed, and hide them the rest of the time. Surely there's a middle ground between showing a user everything and showing a user practically nothing and then trying to guess what they might need. Software that tries to figure out what I want instead of just letting me just pick what I want is, frankly, annoying. How does software handle a situation where an option I might want is hidden because I have a use case that the developers didn't anticipate? > Knowing where in the document you are isn't usually that useful. Disagree. If I'm reading a document on the Internet, I probably don't know how long it is before I start reading it (and those ridiculous tags that say an article is XX minutes long are almost always so wrong that they're useless for me). If I'm scrolling with my scroll wheel, I'm probably not paying attention to the scroll bar. If I've been reading said document for fifteen minutes and I want to know approximately how far into the document I've read (and if I have any hope of finishing it up in the time before I have to do something else) the position of the box in the scroll bar is a great way for me estimate that at a glance. Jiggling the page or moving the mouse all the way to the side or doing some other incantation to make it appear completely breaks my flow reading the document and can make me easily lose my place (especially if I'm in the middle of a paragraph). A quick glance at the scroll bar also breaks the flow, but not quite as badly, and it's a lot easier to resume where I left off.