Sticky 'headers' that disappear when you scroll down, and appear when you scroll up. I hate them so much. It hurts my brain to see the stupid thing appear and disappear constantly if I scroll around a page.
The worst part is you can't even zap them out of the way with something like uBlock, because then there's no header even when you're at the top of the page. >:(
EDIT: Whoops, flipped the directions. Complaint still stands though.
God yes. For some reason, I automatically scroll in such a way that I always keep what I'm reading at the very top of the screen. Which means that every time I want to reread a sentence I first have to scroll past the header.
Mea culpa: this is kinda my doing. I released a library headroom.js (https://wicky.nillia.ms/headroom.js/) for this purpose in 2013 or something, announced here on HN, and it got very popular. It got ported to every framework imaginable. And tons of websites either used it or imitated it.
I think it can be done well, but most do not do it well. Partially my fault because the defaults in headroom were not how I would recommend it. It had a tolerance option, which meant you had to scroll up so far/fast to trigger the reveal. But in my eternal foolishness I set this to zero by default. Adding a little tolerance makes it much less jittery and more intentionally triggered. And thus much less annoying. See the header on the site, it doesn't appear/disappear with every 1px movement
Screen real-estate for legitimate content is often at a premium and then they go and steal some of that land with sticky headers and or footers. I occasionally run across mobile sites that use both at the same time, while throwing in ads here and there, it's an atrocious experience.
Yes but then I think they should leave the header at the top of the page. If I need it I'll scroll all the way back up! Don't make it randomly re-appear and cover the text I wanted to see because I decided to re-read that last paragraph.
This is literally the best ux pattern you can have. It is intuitive - user immediately discovers it when performing the obvious action, it increases the user experience (more text to read) without any real downside.
It is the first thing I suggest to anyone when I see someone didn't implement it.
This is only true if you assume users always scroll down while reading and the only reason they scroll up is to find the header... but many of us scroll up and down while reading and find the re-appearance of the header to interfere with our goal of reading the content. So there is a clear downside for us "up and down" readers.
I don't know what portion of users we are though, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one!
Seriously, have you ever used one? Because most people do not read monotonically downwards. We often scroll back to see something in a previous sentence referred to in the spot we are reading. So we want to go back one or two lines. Bot NOOOOooo, the header pops up, covers 1/4 of the screen, so now we have to scroll that much more, pushing off the screen the other text we hoped to keep on the screen, and it might even go through a few adjustments. So, now, what was a non-event less distracting than turning the page in a book or magazine has now become a fully distracting scroll-fest.
Is that clear enough for you?
>>This is literally the best ux pattern you can have.
NOT EVEN CLOSE. The best User Experience pattern is to give the reader what they asked for AND NOTHING MORE. Nothing more for you, nothing more for your advertisers, and nothing more for them. We click to read the content, LET US READ the content, ALL the content, and NOTHING BUT the content. We'll even understand if some proper STATIC adverts are placed in the content, and we might even click thru if you've shown us something relevant and interesting
But as soon as you start putting motion and other distraction in the adverts, my priority becomes NOT reading the advert, but figuring out how to get it out of my face. And if by some chance I remember it, it is filed among "companies to avoid".
Why does it seem everyone who deals with advertising, from the execs down to the programmers, so stupidly thinks only of the first-order effects — "Grab Their Attention!" — and not the second-order effects, where being so offensive — surprise! — offends people...
I consider it context-dependent. If a site is intended for users to jump around to different pages often, then sticky headers make sense. If it’s designed for long-form articles or scrolling through feeds, then non-sticky headers make sense. When I have implemented them on my own sites, I try to keep them minimal and unobtrusive. But I also have never heard this complaint specifically, until now.
It's awful for the user. There is no reason why scrolling up should perform any other action then scrolling up the content. Zero benefit for anybody involved.
When a user wants to return to the navigation bar at the top he scrolls up. The navigation bar then immediately gets nearer.
The user discovery happens because the act he performs provides the exact intent you need to give him the shortcut.
Also for clarity this is only relevant for content based sites and not apps.
It is vanishingly rare for users to scroll up when reading content unless they want to reach the top
>It is vanishingly rare for users to scroll up when reading content unless they want to reach the top
This assumption is the problem. No, it is not rare for users to scroll up while reading. People are not perfect machines that read everything in one pass and understand it fully.
They may go back to re-read, or look at an earlier image or figure in the text, or otherwise. Sometimes people zone out for a minute and find they 'read' with their eyes but didn't actually take in the content. That requires going back.
For me, scrolling up to re-read is a basic use case of a web page. If it can't do that properly, it has failed.
On what basis do you make the claim that "It is vanishingly rare for users to scroll up when reading content unless they want to reach the top"?
If I were to judge from the comments here (and my own behaviours) it is quite common for users to scroll up when reading content for other reasons that wanting to "reach the top".
no. Scroll already does that. The header can stay where it is. The most intuitive thing you can do is have the content scroll in the direction the user asked for, when they asked for it.
If they want to go up to the top, they can already scroll. To the top.
That’s not why user scrolls up, or at least not the only reason. For example, reading this discussion I constantly scroll up and down to center the text on screen.
If the header only appears after scrolling up for a bit then it’s not so bad, but most implementations show the header after scrolling 1px up. That’s infuriating.
This! And to make matters worse is the header is removed from the document flow, causing the content to jump up when scrolling down. And if you then scroll up to try to read the content that jumped out of the viewport, the stupid header is injected back into the flow causing the content to jump down again. Sigh.
someone designing for mobile first and wanted to maximize screen space. we don't have to be obtuse about it. it was an idea that just didn't go over as well as hoped. clearly, some people like it. it's not your cup of tea, great. now, we all know your feelings. next time i build a site, i'll be sure to get your opinions first.
Even on mobile, where I most frequently encounter it, it really stinks. I don't know where you found any personality who actually likes it, outside of your own head.
If you really must show me the content of the header because in your judgement I can _NOT_ be left alone to read the article I opened instead of your critical header info, show me first and once, and let me access it again off the hamburger menu if it's that damn important.
If you know so much about how people actually use the web, you would also know that they almost NEVER actually see or read what is in those damn drop-down or pop-up headers/footers.
Dead serious, you could monitor me, and 10sec after I dealt with one of those headers, offer me a million dollars to tell you what was in it, and if I didn't you'd shoot me, you'd shoot me 999 times out of 1000. I may be a bit better self-trained for ad-blindness than many, but I know I'm nowhere near unique.
Whoever is selling them to the advertisers is defrauding them.
>>next time i build a site, i'll be sure to get your opinions first.
Seriously, with that attitude, it is obvious you think you are so much better than every reader that you do not need to check their opinion. And it is even more obvious the opinion that needs to be held in check is yours.
> I don't know where you found any personality who actually likes it, outside of your own head.
That's probably because I don't like it myself. You thinking I did like it is something in your head.
As a developer, I can understand why it was created. Sometimes, ideas sound good as a concept, but you really don't know if it is or not until it's actually done. I find this much less annoying than sites that hijack the scroll bar to do their own cool scrolling. For somethings, it's neat. Kind of like some Flash sites did some cool things. It's the ones that try to be like the cool thing but have a totally different site where it just doesn't fit. Those are the really annoying sites. I don't like a lot of the way lots of other developers have implemented things. I just make a note of something I found annoying, and avoid doing that thing on my projects. I'm only able to do things I'm in control of, and try hard to recognize when it's not in my control and just move along. I don't let it ruin my day.
But it's not maximizing it, that's the whole problem. It keeps coming back and blocking the line I'm reading. If they actually wanted to maximize screen space, it is trivial to just leave the top bar at the top of the page and not make it reappear when I scroll slightly back, no js/css needed.
It's not that hard of a concept to understand is it? You scroll down to read content so it disappears to maximize screen. If you start to scroll up, there's a pretty decent chance you might be wanting to go back to the top. If so, here's a shortcut. If not, then yeah it's annoying so you scroll up a bit and then scroll down again to make it go away. It's not the worst idea. It's not something everyone likes. I'm not exactly a fan, yet I'm not so distressed by it as others like yourself. It's less annoying than liquid glass to me.
Others have tried saving undoing scroll to the top with buttons that appear in the margins with "Back To Top" labels. Is it better? worse? It's just another idea. Scrolling all the way back to the top for site navigation on longer pages is annoying. Nothings perfect.
Sticky 'headers' that disappear when you scroll down, and appear when you scroll up. I hate them so much. It hurts my brain to see the stupid thing appear and disappear constantly if I scroll around a page.
The worst part is you can't even zap them out of the way with something like uBlock, because then there's no header even when you're at the top of the page. >:(
EDIT: Whoops, flipped the directions. Complaint still stands though.