Most non tech users never change the defaults on their phones/laptops. This means for those users, the scrollbar is effectively removed (other than scrolling).
Not having a persistently visible scrollbar means there's often no visual signal that something can be scrolled, or what the boundaries of the scrollable view are.
It's especially bad with flat UI design, to the point of being a dark pattern: in the Windows 10 and 11 setup process, there's a screen for opting out of various privacy invasions and other anti-features. Several of the options are completely invisible and undiscoverable until you start turning off the ones that are on screen, changing how tall those options are and revealing that the list is scrollable. Abuse like that is reason enough to always mistrust and hate auto-hiding scrollbars.
Not that simple. Just ran into it today where I was trying to scroll down a page and couldn't. Why? Because there wasn't anything more further down. In the past the scroll bar would of told me there wasn't anything more, but now I actively have to try (and fail) scrolling to 'discover' the fact that there isn't anything there.
_aavaa_|3 years ago
wtallis|3 years ago
It's especially bad with flat UI design, to the point of being a dark pattern: in the Windows 10 and 11 setup process, there's a screen for opting out of various privacy invasions and other anti-features. Several of the options are completely invisible and undiscoverable until you start turning off the ones that are on screen, changing how tall those options are and revealing that the list is scrollable. Abuse like that is reason enough to always mistrust and hate auto-hiding scrollbars.
mrkstu|3 years ago
xdennis|3 years ago
That's why so many websites have pointless scroll arrows inviting you to scroll.