3 ms·

My No.1 pet peeve is the scrollbars. Somehow every modern UI designer hates it, and hates it deeply. They always want to get rid of it. And TBH I'd prefer the o

My No.1 pet peeve is the scrollbars. Somehow every modern UI designer hates it, and hates it deeply. They always want to get rid of it. And TBH I'd prefer the other way around - how about we get rid of them instead?

jimbokun 2y ago
Certain long emails I get don’t show the scroll bar at all in iOS Mail, and I get low grade anxiety not knowing how long the email is or how much more is left. I’m also perplexed why the mail developers would allow such a thing or what kind of bug causes such behavior.
- ferguess_k 2y ago
  My hunch is that they are just using an existing framework that does that, and it may require some digging into the configuration to disable that (or worse, have to change some code). Since this is never going to be an urgent thing it will never be fixed. I work in MacOS VSCode frequently, and whenever I open a large repo with a huge number of files, it's PIA to find the scrollbar. I have to hover the mouse above it to make it appear, but how can I hover above it without knowing where it is? BTW if you share the same frustration with VSCode, please vote this ticket: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/244123 https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/244123
- bromuro 2y ago
  > Certain long emails I get don’t show the scroll bar at all in iOS Mail, and I get low grade anxiety not knowing how long the email is or how much more is left. Yet in iOS you can swipe vertically some pixels and you will see the scrollbar telling you this exact information.
  - jimbokun 2y ago
    For most emails, yes. Some other emails, no. I don't know what determines when it works and when it doesn't.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
cosmic_cheese 2y ago
There’s a similar disdain for menubars which I really can’t understand. The disorderly and abbreviated hamburger menus that most often are used as a replacement are just worse on every single axis except for maybe visual appeal. They throw out what could be the single strain of consistent usability across apps in favor of looking good on a PowerPoint slide and web marketing blurb.
- mo_42 2y ago
  I agree. Hamburger menus aren't any better than menu bars. It seems like an example where design has more importance than function. My alternative to the menu bar would be a search bar that allowed me to search in a Google style everything related to that program: functions, features, shortcuts, and documentation. File | Edit | View | etc. is not the right choice for every program.
  - cosmic_cheese 2y ago
    This is where it’s useful for the menu bar to be system-owned rather than the responsibility of individual programs (whether that be a global bar as in macOS or attached to window decorations). That would make it easy to implement a toggle that hides menubars either globally or on a per-app basis and enable a Unity-type shortkey-summoned HUD to be used instead.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  Hamburger menus work much better on mobile screens that are horizontally constrained, are less visually intrusive when not in use and don't require at least two levels of nesting like classical desktop menu bars do.
  - cosmic_cheese 2y ago
    Even on mobile, in most situations there are better UX choices than hamburger menus. Nearly every app using them I’ve encountered has put as little thought into navigation and UI hierarchy as possible and are awkward to get around in. They’re the ones where one has to go down a winding ever-changing maze to access the desired functionality. Most would be better served by surfacing the most commonly used screens as tabs and most commonly used functions within those tabs. Ideally 2-4 taps is all it should take to get anywhere, and there should only ever be a tiny handful of niche things that take 5+ taps to access.

jimbokun 2y ago

Certain long emails I get don’t show the scroll bar at all in iOS Mail, and I get low grade anxiety not knowing how long the email is or how much more is left. I’m also perplexed why the mail developers would allow such a thing or what kind of bug causes such behavior.

ferguess_k 2y ago
My hunch is that they are just using an existing framework that does that, and it may require some digging into the configuration to disable that (or worse, have to change some code). Since this is never going to be an urgent thing it will never be fixed. I work in MacOS VSCode frequently, and whenever I open a large repo with a huge number of files, it's PIA to find the scrollbar. I have to hover the mouse above it to make it appear, but how can I hover above it without knowing where it is? BTW if you share the same frustration with VSCode, please vote this ticket: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/244123 https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/244123
bromuro 2y ago
> Certain long emails I get don’t show the scroll bar at all in iOS Mail, and I get low grade anxiety not knowing how long the email is or how much more is left. Yet in iOS you can swipe vertically some pixels and you will see the scrollbar telling you this exact information.
- jimbokun 2y ago
  For most emails, yes. Some other emails, no. I don't know what determines when it works and when it doesn't.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

cosmic_cheese 2y ago

There’s a similar disdain for menubars which I really can’t understand. The disorderly and abbreviated hamburger menus that most often are used as a replacement are just worse on every single axis except for maybe visual appeal. They throw out what could be the single strain of consistent usability across apps in favor of looking good on a PowerPoint slide and web marketing blurb.

mo_42 2y ago
I agree. Hamburger menus aren't any better than menu bars. It seems like an example where design has more importance than function. My alternative to the menu bar would be a search bar that allowed me to search in a Google style everything related to that program: functions, features, shortcuts, and documentation. File | Edit | View | etc. is not the right choice for every program.
- cosmic_cheese 2y ago
  This is where it’s useful for the menu bar to be system-owned rather than the responsibility of individual programs (whether that be a global bar as in macOS or attached to window decorations). That would make it easy to implement a toggle that hides menubars either globally or on a per-app basis and enable a Unity-type shortkey-summoned HUD to be used instead.
mike_hearn 2y ago
Hamburger menus work much better on mobile screens that are horizontally constrained, are less visually intrusive when not in use and don't require at least two levels of nesting like classical desktop menu bars do.
- cosmic_cheese 2y ago
  Even on mobile, in most situations there are better UX choices than hamburger menus. Nearly every app using them I’ve encountered has put as little thought into navigation and UI hierarchy as possible and are awkward to get around in. They’re the ones where one has to go down a winding ever-changing maze to access the desired functionality. Most would be better served by surfacing the most commonly used screens as tabs and most commonly used functions within those tabs. Ideally 2-4 taps is all it should take to get anywhere, and there should only ever be a tiny handful of niche things that take 5+ taps to access.