Since when did it become evil-chaotic to design a website taller than the browser window thereby forcing a user to scroll-down? More and more I'm seeing feedback, reactions, and responses to designers work in which that particular problem is being called out (For example: "it's good but you really ought to make it so that the user doesn't have to scroll").
Come again?
I agree that forcing a user to click down through six feet of webpagery isn't advisable but where did this new anti-scroll-wheel ideology come from? I'm not a usability expert—I leave that mythical practice to scientists—but I've done enough Don't Make Me Think style testing to know that scrolling, like clicking, is an essential part of the web user interface and a commonly accepted one. Perhaps I missed that issue of Digital Web (I kid, I kid!) but scrolling isn't bad. Poor design that forces a person to scroll for a few seconds before seeing any content (hello, Geocities?!) is bad but we can't Sadam the mouse for that.
Meanwhile, am I the only one who thinks Apple's new phone thing is cool but not the end of the world? All it means is that no one will ever, truly, really, leave work at the office. Bleh. I'd rather have a secretary.
And also, I appreciate your patience with my little private war with the Longboard del.icio.us insurgency but not to worry, I'm going to throw humans at the problem.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
Perhaps the scrolling idea has something to do with Web 2.0 and how designers don't want to make the user "work" for content. Such as clicking on a link and having the page reload; instead using AJAX to show the content dynamicly. Ya think?
He who resists scrolling has dust in his Mighty Mouse.
iPhone: We've had all that functionality in our Palm Treos for the last three years. Now Steve Jobs does it and he's a genius.
> Perhaps the scrolling idea has something to do with Web 2.0 and how designers don't want to make the user "work" for content.
I think you might be on to something. Perhaps with Web 3.0 we'll just suck the Internet through a straw.
> We've had all that functionality in our Palm Treos for the last three years. Now Steve Jobs does it and he's a genius.
Yeah, I don't get that either.
I think the iPhone is cool.
Oh, now that you mention the Longboard, is there a reason that the image at the top is of a shortboarder? Maybe I'm missing something.
Scrolling isn't work. It's been awhile since I've needed it, but there is lots of evidence out there that "proves" (at least enough to get stakeholders off your back) that scrolling isn't a big deal as far as most people go. And yeah, my "cafe" testing hasn't shown me that scrolling is such a chore either.
In fact, I remember something "official and scientific" that put it up against pagination, ajaxy pages loads, etc. and it won hands down. Sorry I don't rememeber where it was, as it's been a year or so...Google could probably find it for you.
Yea scrolling!
re: the iPhone. I think it looks killer and it's amazing and all that, but you've got a point with the "never leave the office" thing...
One of the more annoying fads lately is the dreaded "1, 2, 3, 4, 5" links for further reading. If I wanted to read further, I'd just assume keep scrolling. It won't hurt my precious shell none to do so. Personally I find this "no-scrolling" policy similar to the popularity of Segways. The idea is slightly nifty (not walking), but damn if it isn't certainly needed for most folks. It's heavier on the ridiculous side for most folks, the same way not-scrolling is for me. Supposed to be helpful in my every day routine, but most likely more of a pain in the ahhhh-well why not.
Scrolling: Actually, it seems all the worries about the page fold and scrolling was more of a 1997-2000 thing. A big part of the so called Web 2.0 has been the idea to let the content be the content and therefore if there is a lot, let it hang low. It will be a shame if the trend flips back to artificially cramming all of your content into an arbitrarily small space for the sake of what, appealing to those with broken mouse wheels and scroll bars? Good Web writing should provide enough interest in your first few paragraphs to reward enough that people will scroll, if not, they are not going to read it above the fold or below.
iPhone: You leave work? Now thats the memo I missed...
> Apple's new phone thing
Steve's a great pitchman. That's it.
Greg - cam I take a wild guess and speculate that this post was borne from the fact that you're working with lawyers/law firms more? I'm wondering because they (lawyers) are a large part of my day job and I deal with this "why is it scrolling" issue on an almost daily basis.
Last year, I redesigned an intranet for a publicly traded company in the chemical biz. When they saw the mockups they were ecstatic (optimized for 1024x768 which is what 98% of their users were using) but after they saw it in action on their own computers they suggested redesigning it so that no one would have to scroll.
I asked if their users were aware of scrolling when they visited web pages and the IT guy chimes in with a point that its one of their number one issues at their help desk.
After the meeting I told my coworker that I fear for the future of our world and its internets.
I don't know where the anti-scrolling thing comes from either. I even remember reading this Jakob Neilson article that basically says that users don't really mind scrolling anymore. For me, it's those big, long articles and other posts that I love the most. I love being able to spend a solid chunk of time reading a web page.
Just so long as your design accommodates scrolling without looking like ass, and the scrolling isn't just ridiculous, I don't see a problem at all.
As far as the iPhone goes, I think one of the reasons it's being so ballyhooed is because it finally gets rid of the keypad. The touch-screen interface is very Star Trek.
I damn near lost my mind scrolling down the page to get to the comment entry box... how DARE you, sir!
I'd constantly be at ends with a co-worker at my last full time thing because she insisted that "no vital information should be out of the initial window [ie, the initial coverage of the viewport]," yet she'd give me 5 pages worth of "vital copy."
iPhone: What?? It doesn't wipe my ass for me? Apple have really dropped the ball...
you want web 2.0 scrolling? ... about the Dead Sea Scrolls. they are kind of long. but very platform independent.
iPhone? iWant! take another look at what it does and you'll chuck the treo. I think only the Blackberry will give apple a run fin this segment.
I dunno, I've heard the "can't you fit it in one screen?" question from every second client since the late nineties. I've just added it to my "client education" list and look with misty eyes forward to a time when it'll be blatantly obvious to anyone (even clients) that scrolling isn't good or bad, it's just a fact.
What makes you say this *now* Greg? I can't say I've noticed any torch-bearing, scroll-hating villages storming the web lately myself.
Yesterday I faced the same problem for the first time ever. I just released a project and I still keep getting mails and comments on how they like the layout but the page is too narrow (fixed width 800px) on their large screens (like 1280 from my logs) and it forces them to scroll (the horror!) and how I should have made the page have a fluid layout so it looks better at 20% zoom.
Less scrolling inevitably means less content for me. And since there is no official spec restricting me in my designs I'll keep making them how I want. Even when one has to scroll.
I had this exact same thing in December... Our client was just concerned that vital information was not above the fold and they felt it was really important to change the design. We changed it and then they came back and said what about the rest of the design that adds a scroll bar? It wasn't even content it was a branded footer with no content... Some companies are still stuck in the 1990's of web design and they won't budge because they seem to think they know best... huff.
Jackob Nielsen (not that I like everything he says, but in case you need some big name to drop): "Scrolling Now Allowed".
As for iPhone, still talking about functionality? It is not about "what" it is about "how"
Funny you mention the scrolling thing. I'm currently dealing with a client thats afraid of things being "below the fold."
As for iPhone, I had the kind of opposite thought. I thought the iPhone would be a means for people to get less work done at work. So you'll no longer have to do your personal web searching on your (monitored) work computer/network. You can now do it on your nifty little iphone.
> I damn near lost my mind scrolling down the page to get to the comment entry box... how DARE you, sir!
Pistols at dawn it is then. So, uh, what time zone are you in?
> can I take a wild guess and speculate that this post was borne from the fact that you're working with lawyers/law firms more?
Yes and no. I do a fair share of creative direction for legal sites but this post is in response to criticism I'm seeing on the web and from non-legal clients. If lawyers tried to pull that crap I would ask the judge for a mistrial based on the opposing counsels inability to use brain cells.
> I asked if their users were aware of scrolling when they visited web pages and the IT guy chimes in with a point that its one of their number one issues at their help desk.
Are their users from kindergarten?
> What makes you say this *now* Greg? I can't say I've noticed any torch-bearing, scroll-hating villages storming the web lately myself.
I had an itch that wasn't going away on it's own.
> As for iPhone, still talking about functionality? It is not about "what" it is about "how"
Touché.
> Jackob Nielsen (not that I like everything he says, but in case you need some big name to drop): "Scrolling Now Allowed".
How appropriate. Here is a passage from DJ Sideburn's musings: "There are still a few users who rarely scroll. Even those users who are willing to scroll may be tempted to choose one of the initially visible options when it seems to match their goals."
Nothing to worry about folks. I'm pretty sure he's talking about the Bush administration and they'll be gone in a few years.
Seen it with increasing frequency, to the point where it's humorous.
I think the client's fear of scrolling might warrant its own phobia. I mean, seriously. Scrolling?
SCROLLING??
Scrolling is one thing, but this business of having to turn the pages of a book MUST STOP.
> I'd rather have a secretary.
Me too !
"Since when did it become evil-chaotic to design a website taller than the browser window thereby forcing a user to scroll-down? "
Since the dawn of web time when neanderthal print art directors and marketing managers made the evolutionary step to walk across the hall to the windowless, cavernous 'interactive team' sitting in the dark plucking away at HTML carrying their stone 'thou shalt not...' tablets to forever torment us with their outdated and media-incorrect truisms.
A few have mentioned 'proof' that scrolling is OK. The study 'Scent of information' has some information on 'above the fold is obsolete':
http://mnteractive.com/archive/above-the-fold-is-obsolete-and-digibuy-is-a-good-company/
I'd love to find more quotes validating the fact that 'scrolling is OK'.
As for the iPhone...what Rimantas said: Jobs' didn't invent anything new, he just changed the way we did the old. And in a way that is remarkably fresh and, at least on first sight, much friendlier to use. The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player. The Mac wasn't the first PC.
On the plus side, for us web folk, the iPhone--if it succeeds--will likely bring a LOT more people onto the web using Safari and (gasp!) a relatively SMALL viewport. I keep hearing people say 'make the page wider, my screen is bigger now' without also realizing that for every larger screen we have, we tend to also have one that is even smaller (PDA/phone/compact laptop/etc.)
> iPhone--if it succeeds--will likely bring a LOT more people onto the web using Safari
I doubt it will bring a lot of people anytimes soon. Blackberry still rocks the world and it will for a long, long time.
> Perhaps with Web 3.0 we'll just suck the Internet
Indeed.
People don't read, people don't click, people don't scroll, fixed width is bad, liquid design is bad ... haven't these dogmas and arguments passed their sell-by date?
> What makes you say this *now* Greg? I can't say I've noticed any torch-bearing, scroll-hating villages storming the web lately myself.
That was my question as well.
Re: Longboard, (cough) Ma.gnolia's linkroll is pretty dandy. It was kind of slow at first, and used ma.gic URLs instead of the acutal URL you were linking to, but those bugs got sorted out early last year.
Um, never mind that last bit, you got Longboard sorted out while I was typing.
"I doubt it will bring a lot of people anytimes soon. Blackberry still rocks the world and it will for a long, long time."
Point being is that it's going to bring more people online using a smaller viewport (be it Apple and/or Blackberry). Which is something that might help break down upper management's 'above the fold' mantra as we really can't even define where the fold is these days given the widening range of viewport sizes out there.
It's the 'above the fold' mentality that big, traditional agencies bring into the mix. My agency acts as the digital arm for quite a few print/broadcast/radio agencies, and they all make the same claim, that everything should be 'above the fold'. It's maddening.
Almost as maddening as their Captain Ahab quests for SEO optimization.
BlackBerrry & iPhone could they combine ?
There may be room there for some collaboration.
PS is it OK to Scroll the Secretary?
"And also, I appreciate your patience with my little private war with the Longboard del.icio.us insurgency but not to worry, I'm going to throw humans at the problem."
Speaking of, my last 4 times trying to email you bounced (both @here and @firstnamelastname), but it looks like you've got it sorted.
iPhone: I just think it's that time where everyone is now jumping on the negative iPhone reaction train to check their glee when Jobs announced it.
I love the announced iPhone and want one. I bought the iPod the week after it was released for $499. I want a video iPod but have held off for a video iPod for one just like the 8Gb iPhone announced on Tuesday and I would have paid about $400 for one. I'm a Cingular customer already, so basically I'm paying $200 more for an innovative phone? Sign me up... I also get 6 months to save my money!
iphone is icandy. And yummy icandy at that, but i'd rather put all my cadbury eggs in two or three baskets keeping me from squeezing out a brown egg when I loose the thing. And it's really not too much work for me to carry my phone, listen to my ipod, and watch TV at three different venues. As for the blue color career of scrolling . . . is it an "either-or" scenerio (either I scroll or click)? Both don't cause too much fatigue? Let the executives have what they want, they'll always want something. So give them this one and realize how many things you got your way. They want to play, too; and you're already having all the fun creating something from nothing.
> As for iPhone, still talking about functionality? It is not about "what" it is about "how"
Exactly. The core functionality of the iPhone isn't anything new, but it's Apple's implementation of the functionality that is exciting. What's revolutionary (yeah, I said it) about the device is that it's probably the first "smartphone" that will be more desired by non-business folks. Namely, teenagers.
Yeah, I'm thinking this whole time (and when ignorant clients make the screen fit complaint), "What are the advantages of a digital medium then?" Print is the one that makes you fit into contraints. The web is supposed to be freedom. That's why we're getting rid of tables and stuff. To quote Gene Wilder from the first Willie Wonka movie, "If God had wanted us to walk, he wouldn't have invented roller skates!"
iPhonically speaking, I think it will rival Blackberry as soon as Apple can tap the platinum-selling, music-video-making Rapper segment to endorse it. Especially if we can find a way to Bedazzle it!
Scrolling - 2 words - print designers. Kills me.....
Jared at UIE posted this article a couple of weeks ago proving that users actually like to scroll. In your face stupid clients!
Ha, unfortunately facts don't always trump personal opinions with clients.
mainly it depends on who your target audience is. Keeping things above the fold was critical in the early days of the web but now that users are more experienced it's not such a big deal. However, if your target audience is people who are new to the internet it's probably a good idea to keep at least the critical content above the fold. As a usability engineer I still see many people miss content below the fold. Most figure it out eventually but some don't.
a major gripe i have is that lots of people who don't know usability read one or two books back in the day and now think those bullet point standards apply everywhere and all the time. I sometimes spend hours trying to convince someone that what jakob Neilson said in 1998 about a home page doesn't apply to a web application today.
One of these days I'm going to be ballsy enough to put ALL the content below the fold. If people can't be bothered to scroll, they're probably useless to me anyway.
>The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player. The Mac wasn't the first PC.
Both very good points. I remember the Diamond Rio, and MAN was that thing a piece of crap. When the iPod came along, it just made you realise just how painful MP3 players were to use at that point. I think we're going to see a similar thing with the iPhone line.
>On the plus side, for us web folk, the iPhone--if it succeeds--
>will likely bring a LOT more people onto the web using Safari
>and (gasp!) a relatively SMALL viewport. I keep hearing people
>say 'make the page wider, my screen is bigger now' without also
>realizing that for every larger screen we have, we tend to also
>have one that is even smaller (PDA/phone/compact laptop/etc.)
Yeah, I'm really thinking it would be best if Safari Mobile (or whatever you want to call it) would parse a "handheld" media type first. If one isn't available, them it would select the "screen" media type. I know a lot of sites (probably even mine) would show up unnecessarily small on the iPhone's screen, even when browsing in widescreen.
It's not actually new, the evil overlord himself, Jakob Nielsen, was saying it back in the day too.
You can best point the complainers to: Embrace the Scroll. Written by John Dilworth, it sums up the history and relevance of scrolling to read.
Must every post for the next 12 months, regardless of subject matter, reduce to heated iPhone debates?
I thought about doing a site using advanced javascripting libraries to make it more 'flash-like' without requiring flash, or more interestingly, any scrolling at all. Getting an idea like this to work without javascript enabled and not totally collapse seemed like the hump to get over.
Who knows, maybe someday soon someone will write an article about this for A List Apart.
Angelo: You must have missed the part of the original post where Greg said:
"Meanwhile, am I the only one who thinks Apple's new phone thing is cool but not the end of the world? All it means is that no one will ever, truly, really, leave work at the office. Bleh. I'd rather have a secretary."
So the iPhone talk is actually on-topic. :)
> Who knows, maybe someday soon someone will write an article about this for A List Apart.
Angelo, you seem capable of writing why don't you write about it?
Zeldman has sort of raised this, but I wonder - why use del.icio.us? Since using Ma.gnolia I can't imagine going back. If there any particular advantages to ol' del.icio.us I'd be curious to know what they are.
I'm using delicious primarily out of curiosity and practice. If using that type of application for a "blogroll" makes sense then I'll consider switching to ma.gnolia, for no other reason than it has fewer 'dots'.
@ Angelo ; I hope you do write something on what you propose. I hate Flash. Anything that could get something close using Javascript would be cool.
One client of mine recently asked me to move content above the fold. I responded by saying that print design and web design are vastly different mediums that result in varying design techniques and usages. Therefore, it's not wise to impose print design techniques onto web design.
Her response was, "What does any of this have to do with print?"
When I expalined that the "above the fold" phrase is a term taken from the newspaper industry to describe the content that's literally above the fold of the paper, she looked at me incredulously.
I don't know... maybe we just need to do a better job of educating our clients so they don't ask for these types of things in the first place.
I believe that some folk just need to experience "being folded"... then they may not be so hot on "above the fold"!
Yeah, that "Above The Fold" business has made its way into every marketer's lexicon it seems. When I try to explain that it's a flawed metahor designed to sell newspapers that live inside locked dispensors, I just get blank stares. Then I ask them if they have a scroll wheel on their mouse and do they use and like it? And that soemtimes works.
I thought a year ago we all decided the footer is where the hot link-on-link action was?
@ GuiltyCarnivore . I am not familiar with what you are suggesting. Where might we learn more on hot link in footers?
Re: Above the fold. Client education is the key. Years ago I used to moan about what terrible clients I had and what silly things they would ask for in their sites, including 'can we make it so people don't have to scroll?'
Then I thought to myself 'What am I doing to educate my clients? To help them become better clients?' And that has made a huge difference. Now, when a client asks me for something like an 'above the fold' design, I say 'No', and I help them understand why the request is wrong. And it actually works. I've never lost a client by telling them 'No'. Of course you need to say 'No' in a good way that doesn't make your client feel like they're an idiot who should simply bow to the Great Web Guru. Treat people as you would like to be treated. It's pretty simple. But don't be afraid to say 'No' to your clients when they have bad ideas and suggestions.
> I am not familiar with what you are suggesting. Where might we learn more on hot link in footers?
That all started with Derek's Powazek's blog redesign and if his blog was still around I'd send you the link. It was an interesting blog design experiment that way too many people took as design gospel. That said there have been some interesting takes on online deisgn composition that were inspired by the everything-in-the-footer concept.
> Now, when a client asks me for something like an 'above the fold' design, I say 'No', and I help them understand why the request is wrong.
Good for you! I've been using the same tact for about six months now but for a different reason. I tell them, quite honestly, that I've been in this business for twelve years and to make good on their suggestion would reflect poorly on my professional reputation and body of work. And then I top it off with a 'no' and suggest better alternatives based off their feedback.
One word ..... Accessibility
Look at this! I scrolled all the way to the bottom of the page and learned a lot from the comments along the way. One thought: what is the correlation between design that could raise usability issues and the acceptance of new standards for web design? Or to put it a different way: if all websites had followed every usability principle, would web design have evolved to the point where the "fold" is not relevant?