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I'm sure opinions will vary, but am wondering if there's any consensus developing as to whether doing so enhances or detracts from usability.
Finally, I changed my mind. Colored scrollbars are OK as long they match the color of the trailing balls.
Indeed. Holistic design consistency is incredibly important.
Not matching the scrollbars to your blinking .gifs is just downright tacky.
Yeh, and a 2 minute 20Mb flash intro that clashes with your CCS scrollbar and animated GIF's is downright bad form.
[edited by: korkus2000 at 11:25 pm (utc) on Jan. 9, 2003]
[edit reason] No specific sites please [/edit]
If I were to change the user's scrollbar colour, it would quite likely clash with their address bar colours and the likes, making for a possibly uncomfortable experience..
My scrollbar is a nice 'blueberry' colour and I like it that way.. If someone were to change that to 'hot orange' on my behalf, It would clash with the blueberry and make for an ugly mix. I'd be distracted, forget about the content, and probably just fiddle around with the scrollbar before leaving.
Someone made a comment about the compliments they received for their scrollbar.. this to me is the ultimate proof that it has not worked.. a scrollbar is an aid to the browsing experience, not the focal point - if people are noticing it and pointing it out, then it's gone too far!
I'm a video-editor by trade and one of the rules of editing is that a good cut is one that you don't notice.. I think the same goes for scrollbars!
I build, maintain, and manage my company's Internet and Intranet sites.
I have used a colored scroll bar ONCE. On the Intranet (never, NEVER on the inTERnet), where I _know_ my users' equipment, browser version, etc. I placed a slightly adjusted (arrows dark blue, base lite-grey-blue, etc) scroll bar on the right edge of a menu-frame for our Corporate Directory.
Frames... I know, evil. But, in a world where I know my audience *exactly*, I think I can use them without too much pain.
The colored bar blends more naturally into the middle of the page, while still being easily visible. I don't believe it's a shock to the user, as their "usual" scroll bar (on the far right edge) remains unchanged.
Even tho' Jakob Nielsen's hair might catch fire at the sight of our Intranet, my users like it, my bosses like it, and I like it.
my users like it, my bosses like it, and I like it.
And that is, of course, the only thing that really matters.
I've posted some decidedly tongue in cheek ripostes condemning the general practice, but the real bottom line is testing with your own audience.
Amateurs don't even know what the rules of the game are.
Professionals have spent time learning the rules, and have clear results to show for it.
Masters know when to break the rules... and why.
Make sure your payment page has the "shake browser" js onload.
I prefer to "fly in" the actual form, I use a few timelines to move it around a bit, while the client is getting the credit card ready.
I was just reading about code that let's you dynamically CHANGE the scrollbar style as you use the page. Pretty simple to figure out the script as an exercise -- now that would create a lot of distraction and/or fun!
yeh - they're know those small time Microsoft pansies are going to go away soon
the W3C has made no move to include it in their standard recommendation so far
Thatīs because their intention is to make it the other way around. Websites should fit into the userīs graphic environment:
CSS2 allows authors to specify colors in a manner that integrates them into the user's graphic environment. Style rules that take into account user preferences thus offer the following advantages:
- They produce pages that fit the user's defined look and feel.
- hey produce pages that may be more accessible as the current user settings may be related to a disability.
[w3.org...]
Andreas
Usually these are attractive "features" that have very little to do with substance - but presentational elemnts.
These attract new webmasters especially, and the return is that they hope these webmasters will put a free "best read by.." advertisement on their sites when they find out that heh! this dosent work in IE/Netscape/Opera etc.. The early versions of Front Page for example (I havent looked for 3 years or so), did not make it clear at all that things you were doing on your page would only be vsible to IE users.
There has been less of these lately (colored scroll bars are quite an "old" technqiue in web timeline terms) I guess that is because the web world is moving slowly but surely to adopting standards.
I have seen colored scroll bars look good in certain sites.. usually weblogs or art sites. But im not sure it makes me buy or read more. My favourite web site is almost text only with one graphic! I go there everyday.
LOL!
I see colored sroll bars as a slippery slope sort of thing. There are scripts that maximize or open a browser window to full screen automatically. Are those the next fad? If they are I want a browser that can override these scripts.
Using Netscape I have no coloured scrollbars :) but when I use IE, the back button is usually hit. I feel it invades your personal belonging, I don't like that. You are changing something that I feel comfortable with: I expect it to be grey and you have changed it. At least within your own page, I have no expectations; you can do what you like there, but the scrollbar is expected to be coloured grey.
It can also leave amateur users wondering what else you'll do to their browser? Is it permanent? Is it a virus? Better get out of this site (and I had people ask me at work if it is a virus - should they continue :))
If not then don't think you have any right to mess with my default browser colors, title bar layout, or any other attribute of the environment I have chosen.
If you mess with it, I will hate you for it.....which actually means I will leave your site unless it is the only one on the planet that offers the information I am looking for (highly unlikely).
Under no circumstances ever mess with a surfer's environment, they came to your web site and they got slapped in the face in the first 2 seconds....how to make friends and influence people. ;)
Keep it simple
Substance over Style
Keep it simple
The newsletter's publisher mentioned that he had a site that had enjoyed really good conversions for a number of years. However, for want of a better way of describing it, its design sucked. It was an early effort that violated just about every stricture of good layout, design and function, including absense of tables, everything centered, long page length, some flashing stuff, "click heres" all over, etc.
He finally decided that, out of laziness, he'd let it languish in that state too long. So, he had it redone, and launched the spiffy new design.
After a few weeks it was apparent that sales were tumbling and he couldn't understand why. He'd expected conversions to improve considerably.
Since there was no apparent explanation, he decided to experiment with going back to the old, crude layout for a while to see what would happen. Well, you guessed it, sales came roaring back. So go figure. What do we know?
So go figure. What do we know?
The same thing that every serious marketer does religiously...
TEST
Everything else is pure soapbox philosophy.
Ugly is beautiful.. the less design, the simpler the html and the better the ranking, and the faster to load. People hate the page so much that they cant wait to click on a link to buy something just to get outtathere.
There is one high profile member here who has some of the ugliest looking sites on the Web, and it is one of his most financially successful sites from memory.. I wonder if he will own up here ;)
Here at WebmasterWorld? Pick a card, any card.
[google.com...]
It was amazing the published graphs he had: He had changed little things such as one word in a link and within seconds the clickthrough was starting to rise. He'd change it back and down it would go again. Unbelievable but true. Simply moving a link about made a massive impact also.
I would like to have seen statistics on coloured-scrollbars, but perhaps he wasn't inclined to try that on such a large corporate website!
I would be inclined to think that it would affect people buying. I wouldn't buy of anyone who had coloured-scrollbars - I only buy of sites that look professional - have a few free banner exchange adverts scattered about and I don't buy.
