Is there any need for scrollbar innovation? What problems do you need to address with current scrollbar design?
Changing for the sake of change isn’t innovation.
That said, while visually scrollbars may not have changed much, the way you interact with them (or scrolling content) has changed considerably over the years.
This isn't a comprehensive tally of scroll bars.
1. We have infinite scroll now. This affects how scroll bars are used.
2. We have content based scroll indicators.
3. We have other UI elements that indicate completion of a document, apart from scroll (percentage indicators, etc. all determined by the UI, not the browser)
As far as browser centered controls, those have largely remained unchanged since the inception of browsers. Back button. Address bar. Scroll bars. Bookmarks. Shortcut toolbars.
The scroll bar has become a commodity. It doesn’t need to be innovated further unless there’s some sort of major change in UI that we haven’t encountered yet.
A scrollbar is a pretty simple widget. Not sure how innovative it needs to be.
What innovation there is likely is simply the fact we often don't need it with the proliferation of touch input devices.
Well first off, the last example is nearly 10 years old which is a long time in digital design. But also I’d say the innovation has been the elimination of the scroll bar. With how much stuff is accessed via touchscreen, you just swipe. Otherwise I think most people on desktop would use the scroll wheel or touch gestures on a trackpad.
This web site does not accurately replicate the behaviour of the scroll bars.
Classic Mac had made scrolling cancellable. If you moved the mouse pointer too much laterally while moving the knob, you lost hold of the knob and it reverted to its original position.
All widgets were cancellable in one way or another. This had that behaviour because the Mac's mouse had only one button.
On the Amiga, which had two mouse buttons, you'd cancel a drag by pressing the right mouse button while holding the left.
Windows copied Mac's behaviour but has changed the distance over the years, but still has it. I think contemporary Macintosh does not have it.
I've also seen in comments of earlier threads that clicking in the trough was inaccurate for some scroll bars.
I wonder if perhaps the 'lack of innovation' (perceived, at least) is partly due to the fact that scroll bar UI isn't exactly inspired by much of anything from the natural world. whereas many other elements have natural world counterparts or inspiration (buttons, keys, etc.). I've been thinking a lot about loading indicators recently. These also don't exactly have real-world counterparts, yet we do see a lot of variety, not necessarily innovation though. I wonder what the difference is. One real-world counterpart for both could be the elevator.
The original metaphor is of a window frame (or *loupe*) that moves across the document. That is why classic Macintosh scrollbar knobs used to be square and not proportional.
Some text editors still use that metafor by showing the entire text file in miniature in the scrollbar trough and having the *knob* be a semitransparent rectangle.
Is there any need for scrollbar innovation? What problems do you need to address with current scrollbar design? Changing for the sake of change isn’t innovation. That said, while visually scrollbars may not have changed much, the way you interact with them (or scrolling content) has changed considerably over the years.
This isn't a comprehensive tally of scroll bars. 1. We have infinite scroll now. This affects how scroll bars are used. 2. We have content based scroll indicators. 3. We have other UI elements that indicate completion of a document, apart from scroll (percentage indicators, etc. all determined by the UI, not the browser) As far as browser centered controls, those have largely remained unchanged since the inception of browsers. Back button. Address bar. Scroll bars. Bookmarks. Shortcut toolbars.
The scroll bar has become a commodity. It doesn’t need to be innovated further unless there’s some sort of major change in UI that we haven’t encountered yet.
A scrollbar is a pretty simple widget. Not sure how innovative it needs to be. What innovation there is likely is simply the fact we often don't need it with the proliferation of touch input devices.
The author probably forgot about mobile devices
Well first off, the last example is nearly 10 years old which is a long time in digital design. But also I’d say the innovation has been the elimination of the scroll bar. With how much stuff is accessed via touchscreen, you just swipe. Otherwise I think most people on desktop would use the scroll wheel or touch gestures on a trackpad.
The Aqua UI from apple was and still is gorgeous.
This web site does not accurately replicate the behaviour of the scroll bars. Classic Mac had made scrolling cancellable. If you moved the mouse pointer too much laterally while moving the knob, you lost hold of the knob and it reverted to its original position. All widgets were cancellable in one way or another. This had that behaviour because the Mac's mouse had only one button. On the Amiga, which had two mouse buttons, you'd cancel a drag by pressing the right mouse button while holding the left. Windows copied Mac's behaviour but has changed the distance over the years, but still has it. I think contemporary Macintosh does not have it. I've also seen in comments of earlier threads that clicking in the trough was inaccurate for some scroll bars.
I wonder if perhaps the 'lack of innovation' (perceived, at least) is partly due to the fact that scroll bar UI isn't exactly inspired by much of anything from the natural world. whereas many other elements have natural world counterparts or inspiration (buttons, keys, etc.). I've been thinking a lot about loading indicators recently. These also don't exactly have real-world counterparts, yet we do see a lot of variety, not necessarily innovation though. I wonder what the difference is. One real-world counterpart for both could be the elevator.
The original metaphor is of a window frame (or *loupe*) that moves across the document. That is why classic Macintosh scrollbar knobs used to be square and not proportional. Some text editors still use that metafor by showing the entire text file in miniature in the scrollbar trough and having the *knob* be a semitransparent rectangle.
Yes. I hated the phase when developers did everything themselves and we ended up with horizontal and vertical scroll bars.