Scrollbars. Ever heard of them? They’re pretty cool. Click and drag on a scrollbar and you can move content around in a scrollable content pane. I love that shit. Every day I am scrolling on my computer, all day long. But the scrollbars are getting smaller and this is increasingly becoming a problem. I would show you screenshots but they’re so small that even screenshotting them is hard to do. And people keep making them even smaller, hiding them away, its like they don’t want you to scroll! “Ah”, they say, “that’s what the scroll wheel is for”. My friend, not everyone can use a scroll wheel or a swipe up touch screen. And me, a happy scroll-wheeler, even I would like to quickly jump around some time.

Too narrow, hidden, minimal feedback…

  • BoozillaEnglish
    111•1 year ago

    UX design got better and better for many years…but it has definitely been regressing over the past few years, IMO. It’s weaponized minimalism at this point. Because it “looks cool, bro”.

    It’s a variant of enshittification.

      • P03 LockeEnglish
        21•1 year ago

        Yeah, it has a very specific meaning, and people are now using it to mean “things becoming shitty”. Just because “shit” is the base word doesn’t mean that’s what the whole word means.

          • P03 LockeEnglish
            4•1 year ago

            No, it doesn’t.

            From Wikipedia:

            Enshittification, also known as platform decay,[1] is a way to describe the pattern of decreasing quality of online platforms that act as two-sided markets.

            From the guy who coined the term itself:

            Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification.

            • BoozillaEnglish
              -1•1 year ago

              Being a pedant is never a good look. You’re missing the larger point. The same corporate impulse that drives platform decay ripples out to things like UX design. And that impulse is: the customer doesn’t matter anymore, we already got your money, only what we want matters.

      • @[email protected]English
        3•1 year ago

        Thank you. I think it was overused even the moment it was used for its intended purpose. It feels really im14andthisisedgy to me.

        • @[email protected]English
          1•1 year ago

          I’m actually really glad we’re hearing it.

          It’s a sign that people are finally starting to have higher standards.

          I think those with low standards would get upset. Nobody likes to admit they’re being taken advantage of.

      • No_English
        1•1 year ago

        Are they wrong for using a word correctly? Or are you wrong for being a bitch about it? Hmmm.

      • pizzaboiEnglish
        1•1 year ago

        Underuse IMO. We’ve grown complacent in so many regards.

    • @[email protected]English
      21•1 year ago

      applying any design language feels wrong. it’s pure manipulation – i remember being forced onto the official twitter app and couldn’t believe there wasn’t a scroll bar. i felt lost; the timeline felt infinite, swallowing

      • I_Miss_Daniel
        25•1 year ago

        They want you doom scrolling.

        It’s one reason I like kbin. I’ll read to page 5 and that’s my limit for a session. Endless scrolling is annoying.

        • snooggums
          7•1 year ago

          On kbin you have the choice to set it to doom scroll if you want.

          Choice is the important thing with something like doom scrolling.

          • I_Miss_Daniel
            2•1 year ago

            Yes.

            I also like upvote and downvote separated. Some apps don’t have that option.