Hacker News Reader

Comment by LoSboccacc | Hacker News Reader

my only issue with scrolling is how the the bar looks >

https://i.imgur.com/rgIbdur.png

it comes in only one color variant, it's inconsistently looking across browser, takes a lot of space, especially for scrolling narrow elements, it has low contrast so it doesn't even do a good job accessibility wise etc.

go to a site like Bulgari's and bam, custom scroller, precisely for this reason

https://i.imgur.com/T3Yasht.png

you'll notice the page scroller is untouched, because it doesn't contrast with the page style, being a browser element, but the inside page scroller would sucks.

you gonna argue with them they have to design their website style to accomodate the gray slate slab of vintage scrollers?

View on HN

Accommodate? They chose to make something that runs in a web browser so they should make something that works in a web browser. If I choose to use one with big scroll bars, that's up to me.

I don't know what browser you're using, but if it's Windows or some GNU/Linux distro, from memory both of these allow you to customise scrollbars. What if I have accessibility requirements and want to customise how software that I run on my own computer works?

> What if I have accessibility requirements and want to customise how software that I run on my own computer works?

The modern web cares very little about such requirements, since they are unlikely to be correlated with making money.

I don't like where things are going :-(.

Don't worry, it will all implode eventually.

I think it's sadly like that comment about Uber a few days ago -- it's a question of staying insane longer than competitors can remain solvent. The web will eat everything sooner or later.

Yeah right.. "If you don't like the web, go somewhere else!!11"

As someone who actually uses scrollbars, I like scrollbars to be wide enough to actually use, especially when they're not against the edge of a maximized window.

The pellet in your second image isn't the worst, but I'm pretty sure anyone implementing "gorgeous" 5-pixel slivers never uses them or they'd have permanent black eyes from punching themselves in the face.

There is some UI chrome that is the responsibility of the browser, not the content within it. Back button, refresh button, scroll bars, address bar, etc. These should be off limits to the content within the web view.

The only person who cares what the scroll bars look like is the designer of the content within the web view. They have mistakenly thought that this is their responsibility.

If it is such an issue for the designer, maybe they should implement designs that are complimentary to the scroll bar?

> they should implement designs that are complimentary to the scroll bar?

that's impossible because, as I said in the comment above, every browser has it's own scroll bar forced upon the user, especially if you factor in mobile browser and their slim, thin black translucent bar (which only appears when you scroll so you don't even know something is scrollable... talk about good design uh?)

Forced? The browser and OS are the one thing that the user DOES choose! If I don't like the way it works, I can use another one or change the config. If the web designer chooses to change the scrollbars on their site, I have no choice when using their site.

I think it betrays a pretty limited understanding of design, to declare a design task impossible because color-coordination can't be scoped in. Prioritizing aesthetics over function usually defeats both.

Meanwhile in the real world aesthetics play a big role in corporate/brand identity and corporate that care enough will build horrendous kludges to work around the limitations of browser styling, but once again it has proven a fool errand to argue with the ivory tower warriors that inhabits the websites for the technically minded.

I'm gonna take your word for it tho and will use the complain button on that Bulgari page to let them know their solution "betrays a pretty limited understanding of design" and they will need your more competent service. /s

> Meanwhile in the real world aesthetics play a big role in corporate/brand identity and corporate that care enough will build horrendous kludges to work around the limitations of browser styling

The browser scrollbar shouldn't be part of the corporate/brand identity any more than the browser menu, address bar or navigation buttons. Navigation belongs to the user, not the webpage designer.

I recently discovered how Facebook do their fade-in thin scroll elements in the messenger[1] web app. They actually size the DIVs too wide by about 20+ pixels, then they alter the z-order so that the DIV edge (where the native scrollbar is) is hidden under another DIV (or over the window bounds). Then they overlay their own scroll bar element at the new visible edge of the DIV and hook it to the div scroll event.

It's one of the worst CSS kludges I have ever seen. I don't know enough about cross browser compatibility though to know if there's a better way?

[1] https://www.messenger.com

Kludge it may be, but if it allows them to have custom scrollbars without replacing native scrolling, it's absolutely the lesser evil.

I've set OS X to always show the scroll bars, and wondered why they disappear on Facebook.

Their custom scroll bar looks identical to the native one.

The whole thing they made feels pointless and user hostile.

Non-macOS-user here. I always wondered why the Messenger webapp looked so weird. It just dawned on me that they're trying to emulate Apple design to the t. It's like running a Java app with the emulated look-and-feel for the wrong OS.

This actually sounds a pretty low cost way to make an important visual change without abandoning the behavior underneath it. User don't know or care about it. Until there is a standard way to do this, a funky CSS hack that adds a few otherwise unneeded elements is more cognitive load for the programmers, but users don't care. And eventually weird kludges like this influence what features get worked on. I hope!

If i am your user, i will hate your second scroll bar. 1. Too small, 2. don't know were click. 3. First one clean scroll bar second waste thinking cycle to know it is scroll bar

Please note, as it says on the tin, that these are intended for your local use only.

Adapt the styling if you wish, using Stylish:

https://codepen.io/dredmorbius/full/QwXBEO/

There is some progress or at least hope in this area. http://caniuse.com/#feat=css-scrollbar

As the user why would I want a UI element I look for to change?

There is a new trend of full-page slide that scrolls but without the scrollbar. I'm seeing a lot of this type websites lately. Though I love the classic scrollbar.

Hah! Yeah, this doesn't bother people using the site.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com