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> there's not much of a good reason to hide them. It looks nicer + you can just use the scroll wheel. A lot of the UI affordances lost over the last decade or

> there's not much of a good reason to hide them. It looks nicer + you can just use the scroll wheel. A lot of the UI affordances lost over the last decade or two are unfortunate, but complaints about scroll bars seem to be purely baby duck syndrome.

jwells89 3y ago
I don't mind having them hidden as an option, but there should be an OS user level override that all apps and sites *obey*. macOS has the first half covered, but electron apps and some browsers have yet to cover the latter half.
ryandrake 3y ago
As the article says, not everyone can use a scroll wheel, and not everyone even has a scroll wheel or touchpad. I personally find using mouse scroll wheels quite painful due to RSI caused from decades of mouse abuse. Yet, designers find scroll bars and up-and-down scroll arrows icky so fuck me, I guess. :(
- f33d5173 3y ago
  > so fuck me, I guess Obviously not, but you also shouldn't expect the whole world to be designed around your needs. If you have difficulty using the expected input method, you should use alternatives with the same functionality, not expect others to redesign their apps in your preferred way.
  - dbetteridge 3y ago
    That's the wrong mentality tbh Design for the best accessibility first and foremost, then try and make things look "prettier". Disabilities can affect anyone at any time and shouldn't be an afterthought.
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      Often, you don't even need to lift a finger, design-wise or implementation-wise, to have good accessibility. The system-wide or toolkit defaults are usually quite accessible right out of the box. macOS's horrible disappearing scrollbars being a huge exception. Most of the terrible designs and accessibility problems stem from software going out its way to write custom controls or force controls to look and behave in a non-default way. It's not an afterthought--people are deliberately adding code to make their software worse.
    - f33d5173 3y ago
      "Accessibility" here refers to one person's very particular disability. You can't possibly predict the entire gamut of disabilities people might face. Trying to do so "first and foremost" is utter madness.
      - strken 3y ago
        Nobody's asking you to predict anything, they're asking you to leave the functional design elements of a scrollbar alone and not fuck them up. Probably if you rent an angle grinder and remove the handrails from the steps at your local library it'll look nicer, but you don't do that, because there's a good reason for those steps to have handrails.
      - pseudalopex 3y ago
        Accessibility here refers to RSI and fine motor control problems. Common disabilities. And studied for computer use already.
      - troupo 3y ago
        Designing with accessibility in mind makes software better for everyone, period. You design a clear, visible, distinctive scroll bar and buttons? Boom, you've catered to everyone with bad vision (for any reason: from blindness to eye surgery), reduced motor skills (for any reason: from arthritis to old age to hand injuries), non-technical users (so they don't have to hunt around the interface hoping to discover hidden features). And this goes for everything in software. Disability is a spectrum, and you yourself will be disabled in one way or another, multiple times, during the course of your life. Be it from old age, surgeries, injuries, strain from sport or mundane tasks like holding a baby.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > you also shouldn't expect the whole world to be designed around your needs. I don't think anyone is expecting that. What's reasonable to expect is that these things are configurable so people can have a UI that works for them.
  - mvdtnz 3y ago
    Scroll bars were fine.
  - c-linkage 3y ago
    I guess we don't need ramps because everyone has feet.
slotrans 3y ago
I keep 10,000 lines of scrollback in iTerm. Flicking the scroll wheel isn't gonna cut it. I NEED the scrollbar. I was searching for a way to make Mac scrollbars wider literally yesterday. It's 100% a real problem.
nine_k 3y ago
It does not look nicer. It looks more mysterious. Where in the list am I? Is there anything below to scroll to? Above? To the right, everyone's favorite? And no, trying to scroll every control just to find this out is not my ideal of usability and comfort.
- epistasis 3y ago
  In an age of information overload, perhaps the mystery is exactly what we need. We know the exact temperature and humidity outside, we have logs of the exact times that our smart lights turned on and off. Our watches tell us our heart rate throughout the day and even its variability. Our phones monitor how much we use them, and in which apps, and report back weekly. When I had outlook in the office, it would summarize how much time I spent in meetings, seemingly to increase my stress level one more notch. The lack of a scroll bar returns mystery, but even more, it brings us back to a simpler time when we weren't overloaded by information such as "how much is left of this text?" or "is there a button hidden somewhere on this page that allows me to complete my task, or is the app just broken?" These are the sorts of small joys that we miss in the Information Age.
  - blix 3y ago
    It's so you can doomscroll for hours without realizing how much content you have consumed. It's pointless to know how much is left because the feed is infinite. You can't ever get to the bottom that a scroll bar would imply as new content is loaded. It is an enabler of information overload, not a solution or respite.
    - epistasis 3y ago
      I was being sarcastic, as I absolutely despise the lack of scroll bars. But perhaps I was being too subtle
- kps 3y ago
  I recall a particular phone app controlling thermostat settings with a beautifully styled row of buttons: Ⓢ Ⓜ Ⓣ Ⓦ Ⓣ Ⓕ Wednesday Thursday Friday, indeed.
BLKNSLVR 3y ago
(For humour purposes only: Fuck me, I've been holding it wrong the whole time!) On my desktops I've got more screen width than any of my open windows know what to do with, and they still want to skimp on scroll bar width. I can understand with mobile, but mobile design decisions are crowding out desktop usability. It's lazy and cheap but the market is monopolised enough that the approaching horizon can only look "no worse" at best.
hulitu 3y ago
> It looks nicer + you can just use the scroll wheel. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". My work laptop does not have a "scroll wheel". There is a posibility to scroll using the touch pad but it is undocumented and hit or miss.

jwells89 3y ago

I don't mind having them hidden as an option, but there should be an OS user level override that all apps and sites *obey*. macOS has the first half covered, but electron apps and some browsers have yet to cover the latter half.

ryandrake 3y ago

As the article says, not everyone can use a scroll wheel, and not everyone even has a scroll wheel or touchpad. I personally find using mouse scroll wheels quite painful due to RSI caused from decades of mouse abuse. Yet, designers find scroll bars and up-and-down scroll arrows icky so fuck me, I guess. :(

f33d5173 3y ago
> so fuck me, I guess Obviously not, but you also shouldn't expect the whole world to be designed around your needs. If you have difficulty using the expected input method, you should use alternatives with the same functionality, not expect others to redesign their apps in your preferred way.
- dbetteridge 3y ago
  That's the wrong mentality tbh Design for the best accessibility first and foremost, then try and make things look "prettier". Disabilities can affect anyone at any time and shouldn't be an afterthought.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    Often, you don't even need to lift a finger, design-wise or implementation-wise, to have good accessibility. The system-wide or toolkit defaults are usually quite accessible right out of the box. macOS's horrible disappearing scrollbars being a huge exception. Most of the terrible designs and accessibility problems stem from software going out its way to write custom controls or force controls to look and behave in a non-default way. It's not an afterthought--people are deliberately adding code to make their software worse.
  - f33d5173 3y ago
    "Accessibility" here refers to one person's very particular disability. You can't possibly predict the entire gamut of disabilities people might face. Trying to do so "first and foremost" is utter madness.
    - strken 3y ago
      Nobody's asking you to predict anything, they're asking you to leave the functional design elements of a scrollbar alone and not fuck them up. Probably if you rent an angle grinder and remove the handrails from the steps at your local library it'll look nicer, but you don't do that, because there's a good reason for those steps to have handrails.
    - pseudalopex 3y ago
      Accessibility here refers to RSI and fine motor control problems. Common disabilities. And studied for computer use already.
    - troupo 3y ago
      Designing with accessibility in mind makes software better for everyone, period. You design a clear, visible, distinctive scroll bar and buttons? Boom, you've catered to everyone with bad vision (for any reason: from blindness to eye surgery), reduced motor skills (for any reason: from arthritis to old age to hand injuries), non-technical users (so they don't have to hunt around the interface hoping to discover hidden features). And this goes for everything in software. Disability is a spectrum, and you yourself will be disabled in one way or another, multiple times, during the course of your life. Be it from old age, surgeries, injuries, strain from sport or mundane tasks like holding a baby.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > you also shouldn't expect the whole world to be designed around your needs. I don't think anyone is expecting that. What's reasonable to expect is that these things are configurable so people can have a UI that works for them.
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  Scroll bars were fine.
- c-linkage 3y ago
  I guess we don't need ramps because everyone has feet.

slotrans 3y ago

I keep 10,000 lines of scrollback in iTerm. Flicking the scroll wheel isn't gonna cut it. I NEED the scrollbar. I was searching for a way to make Mac scrollbars wider literally yesterday. It's 100% a real problem.

nine_k 3y ago

It does not look nicer. It looks more mysterious. Where in the list am I? Is there anything below to scroll to? Above? To the right, everyone's favorite? And no, trying to scroll every control just to find this out is not my ideal of usability and comfort.

epistasis 3y ago
In an age of information overload, perhaps the mystery is exactly what we need. We know the exact temperature and humidity outside, we have logs of the exact times that our smart lights turned on and off. Our watches tell us our heart rate throughout the day and even its variability. Our phones monitor how much we use them, and in which apps, and report back weekly. When I had outlook in the office, it would summarize how much time I spent in meetings, seemingly to increase my stress level one more notch. The lack of a scroll bar returns mystery, but even more, it brings us back to a simpler time when we weren't overloaded by information such as "how much is left of this text?" or "is there a button hidden somewhere on this page that allows me to complete my task, or is the app just broken?" These are the sorts of small joys that we miss in the Information Age.
- blix 3y ago
  It's so you can doomscroll for hours without realizing how much content you have consumed. It's pointless to know how much is left because the feed is infinite. You can't ever get to the bottom that a scroll bar would imply as new content is loaded. It is an enabler of information overload, not a solution or respite.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    I was being sarcastic, as I absolutely despise the lack of scroll bars. But perhaps I was being too subtle
kps 3y ago
I recall a particular phone app controlling thermostat settings with a beautifully styled row of buttons: Ⓢ Ⓜ Ⓣ Ⓦ Ⓣ Ⓕ Wednesday Thursday Friday, indeed.

BLKNSLVR 3y ago

(For humour purposes only: Fuck me, I've been holding it wrong the whole time!) On my desktops I've got more screen width than any of my open windows know what to do with, and they still want to skimp on scroll bar width. I can understand with mobile, but mobile design decisions are crowding out desktop usability. It's lazy and cheap but the market is monopolised enough that the approaching horizon can only look "no worse" at best.

hulitu 3y ago

> It looks nicer + you can just use the scroll wheel. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". My work laptop does not have a "scroll wheel". There is a posibility to scroll using the touch pad but it is undocumented and hit or miss.