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Great parody. I suppose this is a relevant article to attach this question. What is the general consensus on using the scroll event to trigger animations/conte

Great parody. I suppose this is a relevant article to attach this question. What is the general consensus on using the scroll event to trigger animations/content changes? I am working on an article that uses animations to help explain scientific processes and triggering these with the scroll position seems to offer many advantages over having the user keep clicking a next button. I know where they are on the page and can display the relevant part of an animation. This style gets a lot of hate on HN, which is why I want to ask: is there a better way?

simantel 13y ago
Does it get much hate, though? Snowfall and The Jockey, the NYT pieces, use scroll to trigger pretty much everything, and they received tons of attention both here and in more mainstream media outlets.
- alexcroox 13y ago
  I think what people liked the most about those was the use of truly rich media (html5 video) to compliment the article. The use of the scroll wheel was a novelty add on. When everything is reliant on the scroll it's pretty annoying.
- drewblaisdell 13y ago
  The interactive NYT pieces get lots of attention and praise, but I remember seeing at least one critic on HN write "is scrolling the new Flash?" and a lot of discussion about how the scrolling animation in articles tends to be superfluous.
kevincennis 13y ago
I think it really depends on how you do it. I find that I get annoyed by sites that use scrolling as a means to navigate between sections that aren't really sequential. Something like a product page with Features, Tech Specs, Pricing, etc. those are things I want to be able to navigate to in a nonlinear way. If you have content that lends itself to serialization or whatever you want to call it, the scrolling effects work a lot better. At that point, it just becomes an embellishment - because the user already expects to be scrolling.
yogo 13y ago
The more annoying thing is the big YouTube embed that causes the experience to fall apart since the scroll does not propagate to the page.
nwh 13y ago
It makes me incredibly anxious. Can't really explain much.

simantel 13y ago

Does it get much hate, though? Snowfall and The Jockey, the NYT pieces, use scroll to trigger pretty much everything, and they received tons of attention both here and in more mainstream media outlets.

alexcroox 13y ago
I think what people liked the most about those was the use of truly rich media (html5 video) to compliment the article. The use of the scroll wheel was a novelty add on. When everything is reliant on the scroll it's pretty annoying.
drewblaisdell 13y ago
The interactive NYT pieces get lots of attention and praise, but I remember seeing at least one critic on HN write "is scrolling the new Flash?" and a lot of discussion about how the scrolling animation in articles tends to be superfluous.

kevincennis 13y ago

I think it really depends on how you do it. I find that I get annoyed by sites that use scrolling as a means to navigate between sections that aren't really sequential. Something like a product page with Features, Tech Specs, Pricing, etc. those are things I want to be able to navigate to in a nonlinear way. If you have content that lends itself to serialization or whatever you want to call it, the scrolling effects work a lot better. At that point, it just becomes an embellishment - because the user already expects to be scrolling.

yogo 13y ago

The more annoying thing is the big YouTube embed that causes the experience to fall apart since the scroll does not propagate to the page.

nwh 13y ago

It makes me incredibly anxious. Can't really explain much.