D
Dan Newell
Open a large web page. If you click on the scroll bar on
either side of the thumb (above or below it), IE will
scroll up or down through the document.
In most applications, clicking anywhere in the scroll bar
corresponds to 1 page up or page down. I don't have my
windows style guide in front of me, but I believe this
used to be the defined behavior.
In IE, *where* you click in the scroll bar changes the
distance IE scrolls. If you click close to the thumb, IE
scrolls approximately one page. If you scroll far away
from the thumb and close to the far arrow icon (small
black triangle in a square box) that composes the end of
the scroll bar, IE will scroll some capricious and
indeterminate distance in that direction.
There are other UI models for scroll bars in other
operating systems. They usually give more visual
indication that scroll travel is proportional to where
interaction occurs. They show where to click to get page
up/down and where to click to move proportionally.
Unfortunately, IE does not do this. The current behavior,
IMHO, makes the scroll bar far less useful. IE is mostly a
point/click interface and often kbd interaction is
disfavored or less useful (except here). Most often, when
opening a large web page, page down is the obvious
followup action to take. It is my sense that until
recently, clicking in the scroll bar on either side of the
thumb did only move one page up or down. One only had to
push the mouse to the right lower corner of the scroll bar
a single time and click again and again without moving the
mouse or taking eyes off the text to read through the
document.
The current behavior forces the user to locate the thumb,
position the cursor arbitrarily close to the thumb
(because the mouse target for 1 page up/down behavior is
not evident and seems quite small on very large web
pages), and repeat this every time a page operation is
repeated. That or take the hand off the mouse and use the
page up/down keys.
Again, IMHO, the coding that went into the proportional
scrolling should be ripped out and the behavior simplified
to that clicking anywhere in the scroll bar ought to only
page up or down *one* page. Shooting to some random
location in the document is not helpful. I would suggest
that 99.999% of the time, when people read to the bottom
of the screen, they want to read the next line in a web
page and not jump an indeterminant number of lines/pages.
Already, IE is pretty poor at giving an indication of
where the last line of text has moved to after you page
down. If you page down, the bottom line of text ought to
be either the top line of text or at least *always* in the
same location down from the top of the frame. In IE, the
position of the next line of text to read seems to shift
around forcing the reader to hunt.
While I am at it, it would be trivial to have the exact
line of text that was formerly at the bottom of the screen
to flash at the top of the screen (if it is not at the
exact top) to give the eyes an easy target so they can
resume reading immediately, rather than hunting for where
they left off after every page down before reading can
resume. This can be anything from inverting the pixels
several times or flashing an underline or what have you.
Now, having written all this, I am basing my opinion on
the systems I have available. I suppose there could be
something peculiar to my setups or else something
blazingly obviously wrong with what I am doing ("Click
here for page up/down stupid!"). Still, this has bothered
me for some time, enough to motivate me to write.
I can be contacted at dannewell at msn.com (replace the at
with the obvious symbol) for any follow on questions.
Dan
either side of the thumb (above or below it), IE will
scroll up or down through the document.
In most applications, clicking anywhere in the scroll bar
corresponds to 1 page up or page down. I don't have my
windows style guide in front of me, but I believe this
used to be the defined behavior.
In IE, *where* you click in the scroll bar changes the
distance IE scrolls. If you click close to the thumb, IE
scrolls approximately one page. If you scroll far away
from the thumb and close to the far arrow icon (small
black triangle in a square box) that composes the end of
the scroll bar, IE will scroll some capricious and
indeterminate distance in that direction.
There are other UI models for scroll bars in other
operating systems. They usually give more visual
indication that scroll travel is proportional to where
interaction occurs. They show where to click to get page
up/down and where to click to move proportionally.
Unfortunately, IE does not do this. The current behavior,
IMHO, makes the scroll bar far less useful. IE is mostly a
point/click interface and often kbd interaction is
disfavored or less useful (except here). Most often, when
opening a large web page, page down is the obvious
followup action to take. It is my sense that until
recently, clicking in the scroll bar on either side of the
thumb did only move one page up or down. One only had to
push the mouse to the right lower corner of the scroll bar
a single time and click again and again without moving the
mouse or taking eyes off the text to read through the
document.
The current behavior forces the user to locate the thumb,
position the cursor arbitrarily close to the thumb
(because the mouse target for 1 page up/down behavior is
not evident and seems quite small on very large web
pages), and repeat this every time a page operation is
repeated. That or take the hand off the mouse and use the
page up/down keys.
Again, IMHO, the coding that went into the proportional
scrolling should be ripped out and the behavior simplified
to that clicking anywhere in the scroll bar ought to only
page up or down *one* page. Shooting to some random
location in the document is not helpful. I would suggest
that 99.999% of the time, when people read to the bottom
of the screen, they want to read the next line in a web
page and not jump an indeterminant number of lines/pages.
Already, IE is pretty poor at giving an indication of
where the last line of text has moved to after you page
down. If you page down, the bottom line of text ought to
be either the top line of text or at least *always* in the
same location down from the top of the frame. In IE, the
position of the next line of text to read seems to shift
around forcing the reader to hunt.
While I am at it, it would be trivial to have the exact
line of text that was formerly at the bottom of the screen
to flash at the top of the screen (if it is not at the
exact top) to give the eyes an easy target so they can
resume reading immediately, rather than hunting for where
they left off after every page down before reading can
resume. This can be anything from inverting the pixels
several times or flashing an underline or what have you.
Now, having written all this, I am basing my opinion on
the systems I have available. I suppose there could be
something peculiar to my setups or else something
blazingly obviously wrong with what I am doing ("Click
here for page up/down stupid!"). Still, this has bothered
me for some time, enough to motivate me to write.
I can be contacted at dannewell at msn.com (replace the at
with the obvious symbol) for any follow on questions.
Dan