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Comment by null_ptr | Hacker News Reader

How about no more scroll jank by just delivering plain useful content without the anti-usability bells and whistles? Even the cheapest hardware out there today is able to provide a nice user experience, and in answer to that we invent new ways to make everything bloated and choppy.

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While I completely agree with your principle, I find myself interested in shimming the not-yet-standard "sticky" positioning, which is in draft specifications and available in bleeding-edge [0]. Depending on how many items use it, you would have to write your scroll handlers carefully.

In cases where this would really improve usability, I consider it an exception to my general antipathy towards "bells and whistles", since it will be native before too long.

[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/position

Your comment fits the general pattern of "I want to keep it simple but if I could just do X" which is entirely valid from a UX perspective and the reason why any generalised janky buster is a good step forward (assuming it does the job, and with minimial overhead).

sticky isn't expected to change much, and ships prefixed (and with accelerated compositing) in iOS 7.

But it remains unavailable in Google Chrome and they don't plan on implementing it until it hits the standards board.

How about understanding that presentation matters. In fact, in the marketing domain presentation frequently is the content.

One man's anti-usability bells and whistles is another person's essential user engagement element that shapes the perception of the product. You try and sell MBP in Courier New/13px at 100% width and we'll laugh it off as the most idiotic idea ever. And that's not even getting into derivatives like website design galleries that generate a lot of viral awareness, but won't even look at sites without a UX gimmick.

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