Title : The Popup Scrollbar Concept Date : 2008-05-12 Code : As you may remember from <a href="http://www.osnews.com/search?q=common+usability">our series on common usability terms</a>, I have a lot of interest in graphical user interface concepts. In addition, I applaud anyone trying to improve existing concepts, people that try to think beyond set conventions to come up with an improved version of that concept, or a new concept altogether. Thorsten Wilms took on the well-established concept of the scrollbar, and came up with <a href="http://thorwil.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/popup-scrollbar-concept-demo/">a few interesting tweaks</a>.<br /><br />His idea is one of those things that are hard to explain by textual means - hence the video he made, which he put on YouTube for us all to see. </p><p> <center><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PnXY4wjuH8"><img src="/img/19732/1.png" width="418" height="350" title="YouTube warning image." alt="YouTube warning image."></a></center> </p><p> While I applaud the efforts made by Wilms (I already noted <a href="http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2008-May/msg00004.html">his email</a> to gnome-usability), I have difficulties seeing the exact problems this new type of scrollbar tries to resolve. When observing my friends, who are almost all decidedly <i>not</i> computer savvy, I see that they use the scroll wheel for minor scrolling, and the 'scroll blob', as I like to call it, for heavier scrolling (like jumping to specific sections of a page). Of course, this is completely unscientific, but I think it's rather representative for most people out there. I've never seen anyone frantically turning the scroll wheel, only to be amazed by being pointed to the scroll blob - or vice versa. In other words, what problem does this new type of scrollbar address? </p><p> The only thing I can see is that when the scroll blob becomes too small, the act of being able to click and drag <i>in the entire scroll bar</i> to scroll can be quite handy. However, I would argue that scroll blobs becoming too small is not an inherent problem of the current scroll bar concept itself, but of the underlying toolkit instead: scroll blobs should always remain big enough to remain an easy target: you know, usability's favourite dead horse, <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/18893/Common_Usability_Terms_pt._IV:_Fitts_Law">Fitts' Law</a>. In other words: this is a low-level problem, that you really shouldn't try to fix with a high-level solution. </p><p> This leaves us with the ever important question of whether or not to embrace a new UI concept: is the problem that the new concept tries to address big enough to justify learning that new concept? Seeing the relative complexity of Wilms' scroll bar, I tend to answer that question with 'no'. </p><p> Feel free to disagree in the comments.</p> # securitydot.net Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:43:29 +0000