The Scrollbar Dilemma!
Trend: Default Scrollbars
I cringe when I see a sleek interface coupled with a default scrollbar. The problem being, that the design either clashes with or is stifled by the default scrollbar. However, there are definitely challenges in implementing custom scrollbars both in their visual design as well as their functionality and implementation. It’s a tough call. If you think we should stick with our old pal the default scrollbar vote this trend up, but if you think we should step up to the plate with custom scrollbars vote this trend down.
The default scrollbar sticks out like a sore thumb and gets in the way of the overall hierarchy on the page:
Although this design has a sleek presence, it may almost be too subtle lacking standard elements such as up/down arrows. The other downfall of this particular site is that it is all flash making it less searchable:
References and further reading:
Custom DHTML Scrollbar Tutorial
Cross Browser and Standards Compliant Custom ScrollBar Script by Hesido
Scrolling and Scrollbars by Jakob Nielson
evernote.com
dimellashaffer.com
-
Vote on this trend:
-3 (19 votes)
Loading ... -
Tags: custom scrollbar, default scrollbar, scrollbar
- Categories: Trends
Paul Olyslager
Sep 21, 2009
4:06 am
Designing custom scrollbars has always been a topic with a lot of discussion. Back in the days people didn’t design this because a lot of browsers didn’t support it but times are changing… only thing is that now people start to think about the usability of it and if it is user friendly or not. My opinion, if the scrollbar really doesn’t fit your design, change it… If you do so, use the elements which are important such as arrows. Otherwise, keep it as it is…
Tweets that mention The Scrollbar Dilemma! | User Interface Trends -- Topsy.com
Sep 22, 2009
8:48 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Kate Vander Ploeg and Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson said: The ScrollBar Dilemma! http://bit.ly/i8zHv [...]
John
Sep 22, 2009
5:00 pm
personaly I get verry agrivated at any site/app/etc that messes with the default scrollbar. this is not an issue with look, but feel. many toolkits allow for skining of the toolbar (ie allowed webdevs to set the color of the scrollbar). however this never effected the behavior.
user have many preferences, and sites/apps should try and conform to those as much as posible. ui color is a long standing one on the desktop. scrollbar behavior is another. personaly I like both up and down arrows on both the top and bottom of the bar as well as the abillity to click and drag and jumpto functionality. this is one element that draws me in or deters me from a particular ui
and when running across sites/apps that both change the look and the feel of my prefered settings (or at least the standard and expected behavior) I get annoyed.
lastly, scrollbars have historicly been a ui oddity from the developmet point of view. most ui’s didn’t treat them as standerd widgets or elivated them to some internal magic. this is ofcourse mostly due to to the lack of graphic acceleration needed to smoothly handle scrolling of large double buffered data. however most modern system have moved this off to the gpu.
which brings me back to my point (if I ever had one) that when sites/apps roll-their-own they tend to lack the default feel but the also tend to have serious performance issuse. which, to me, makes the entire product look bad.