[Sigia-l] Scrollbars

[Davezilla]

On 11/13/06, jamie foggon <jarmes at gmail.com> wrote:

> Does anyone know of any interesting research on this, or have any
> comments or examples?

I know from seven years of usability testing that users generally
frown on nonstandard scrollbars, especially when designers think it's
cute to make the scroller tiny. They are generally less easy to
access, thus violating Fitt's Law and do not always have the same
speed/smoothness as the built in OS scrollbar's are. Another issue I
have with  Ajax/Flash scrollbars is they tend to forget to include
scroll arrows, something users need to cover large windows rapidly.

I would avoid them like the plague. The only AJAX or Flash form
element I've seen that users prefer is the range slider. Here is
Apple's Developer Guidelines for scrollbar treatment:
<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/index.html?http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/XHIGIntro/chapter_1_section_1.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000894-TP6>

-- 
Color me gone,
Dave Linabury (Davezilla)
<http://davezilla.com>