The Horizontal Way
Trend: Horizontal Scrolling
Most people try fitting their design to the width of a standard window size to avoid horizontal scrolling. Nielsen even claims that “users hate horizontal scrolling” , and names reasons to stray away from horizontal scrolling. But then, there are those–I dare say most of them are designers–who do it anyway. So are these guys designing without regard to the usability of their sites, do they just not give a fudge about usability, or are they designing for a situation they feel warrants horizontal scrolling?
Click this link for a showcase of horizontal sites The Horizontal Way
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Tags: design, horizontal scrollbars, Jakob, scrollbar, scrollbars, ui trend, usability, user interaction, visual design, web design
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Jeff Noble
Feb 5, 2010
11:02 am
It’s not only design related sites, here are some others:
Google Fast Flip – http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/
Pandora – http://www.pandora.com/
Grooveshark – http://listen.grooveshark.com/
blythe
Feb 5, 2010
11:58 am
I find the horizontal scrolling in the design examples actually quite intriguing. Now, dare I say, I’m a designer, so forgive me if that means I am bias. I think the idea of staying “above the fold” encourages horizontal scrolling, as long as you have functionality to do so and you are not trying to adjust the width of your browser or using a generic scroll bar. You have the feeling of being able to see more, while still staying in one place (as opposed to scrolling up and down). Certainly just my personal opinion. Check out this blog if you are interested in some more thoughts around “the fold” and visual hierarchy to get the most out of your content:
http://www.microarts.com/culture/branding-insights/2009/11/by-taylor-luke-senior-designer-way.php/?s=bl
uberVU - social comments
Feb 5, 2010
1:38 pm
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by uitrends: New post: The Horizontal Way (http://cli.gs/N9nde) http://cli.gs/N9nde...
Allan
Feb 8, 2010
8:08 am
It is because the creator of such horizontalness is an artiste and scrolling concerns are so … pedestrian.
Timothy Scahill
Feb 8, 2010
1:50 pm
I first saw a horizontal scrolling site in the 90ies with Buddyhead.com – They don’t any more but it always impressed me when they did. Different thinking is always good!
–timbo
Marco Rosella
Feb 17, 2010
4:00 am
Hi, I’m Marco from The Horizontal Way: thank you! :-)
India G.
Mar 2, 2010
9:59 pm
As far as usability goes I believe as long as the navigation is clear and the site is built around horizontal scrolling then there shouldn’t be much of a problem. Not saying that its appropriate for all content but with the popularity of the iPhone and most other touch screen devices, especially those that use cover flow, user will be able to adapt to it with little effort.
Next Gen Trends in Web UX/UI | Mac Development | iPhone Development | Android Development | Web Development
May 25, 2010
7:47 am
[...] into summer we’ve seen some pretty thorough roundups of the latest Web and UI design trends. Horizontal scrolling enjoys it’s day in the sun, while Web fonts and online typography have gotten huge this year. [...]
Mobile Tweaks | Next Gen Trends in Web UX/UI
May 25, 2010
2:56 pm
[...] into summer we’ve seen some pretty thorough roundups of the latest Web and UI design trends. Horizontal scrolling enjoys it’s day in the sun, while Web fonts and online typography have gotten huge this year. [...]
Mark Sansom
Aug 16, 2010
7:04 pm
What’s the user experience difference between horizontal scrolling (http://bit.ly/7g0zw), a carousel slider (http://bit.ly/3plHXw), and a page-turning interface (http://bit.ly/9Bu1X0)? It seems to me that they all do the same thing using different source code. Time changes everything. Acceptance of horizontal scrolling by iPad users is making yesterday’s frowned upon experience, today’s bright and shining star.