Coloring scrollbars, views and opinions.

[Mhtml]

Alright following that last thread on coloring scrollbars this thread is supposed to be a sort of faq with pros and cons of using CSS to change them in IE.

Ground rules:

This will be heavily moderated and posts which I or other people feel to be pretty irrelevant will be removed or edited.

All posts should have good spelling and grammar and clearly outline what you are trying to say so that people who read this, an no doubt many will can see why and why not they should or shouldn't use this technique based on pros and cons ...

[me']

All right, I'll start off the posting. I've been known to get quite angry in these types of threads in the past, so I'll try and keep it down

The UI Argument
Open a new window, tab or whatever, with no page displayed. You might see a load of white (or whatever your custom background colour is), but the rest of what you see is your browser. It's yours. You can style it and colour it and fool around with it as much as the vendor lets you.

Note the wording: you can. Not some random stranger who's page I happen to be reading. They shouldn't have access to your browser, because it's yours, right? You'd get angry if people started deleting your bookmarks, yeah? Then why is it, in some people's opinion, acceptable to colour the scrollbars? I count that as messing with my User Interface.

Pages are meant to hold data. They can look pretty with CSS or XSLT-FO if you're into that, but inevitably all they should do is display (or collect, whatever) data. My browser is the interface that I use to get to this data. I've set it up exactly as I want. Don't change it! Please!

Standards and Internet Explorer
If you're new to this 'standards' thing, a brief introduction: The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is a load of great guys who come up with 'standards' for the web. They think a lot about this, and the end result is a standardised set of rulings that (if people follow), life would be good.

Internet Explorer supports much less standards than other browsers. (It's also less secure, has less features etc. but I won't go into that). It supports propreitory CSS, which Microsoft deem acceptable, but no-one else does.

scrollbar-* are some of these properties. No other browsers at all support these properties. So why should you?

Oh, and the CSS won't get past the validator if you include scrollbar-*, another great reason not to do it.

I'll let other people argue about the accessibility, a page can often be just as accessible if the correct colours are chosen (but very rarely more accesible).

Wow, the end of a scrollbar post, and I didn't flame once!

[Skyzyx]

It's all boils down to a matter of definitions: Is the scrollbar part of the webpage, or is it part of the web browser's user interface?

In your OS, windows have scrollbars, right? In MS Word, you've got scrollbars, right? Scrollbars are a native part of the UI. In a webpage, you don't have to program the scrollbars. You don't tell the up button to move up, or the down button to move down. The engineers who have developed the application you're using are the ones who have done the programming for that particular user interface widget. There's a certain look and feel that the engineers have implemented into their application that makes it more usable or accessible.

However, if it's actually just a part of the webpage, then sure. Color it however you'd like. But I think we all know that it's not part of the webpage.

There is a line between what is part of the webpage, and what is part of the UI. This is a line that Microsoft has blurred. "Oh cool, a new feature!" But is it a good feature? Is the web designer going to be responsible with this feature?

Generally, I find that those who are responsible enough to use this feature in the first place, don't because they know better than to mess with the user's UI.

[jkd]

Usability pros? None. There are no usability benefits associated with changing the color of the scrollbars.

Usability cons? Messing with the OS-level UI is bad juju.

Now, if you remove the usability qualifier, then the debate can be taken further. But in the narrow topic of usability, that's all that can really be said.

[Mhtml]

I thought about that when I posted it ...


...

Very well then, usability discarded ... continue

[mindlessLemming]

Well seeing as you bought it up...
I feel there is still a very small place for coloured scrollbars on the far fringes of Mum and Pop commercial sites. If the page contains a column-like <div> on the left of the screen and fails to touch any of the viewport’s boundaries, then I believe that tasteful & considerate re-styling of that scrollbar is allowable.

That said, I would never again consider changing scrollbar attributes. Primarily because according to the W3C, the scrollbar does not have any attributes in CSS.
The above example would only come into play with a pain in the @$$ client were it would be more of a case of “Let the Baby have his candy”

[Jerome]

if(Your complete audience==expects a colored scrollbar)
color them
else if(One person from Your audience!=expects a colored scrollbar)
leave them like they are

Jerome

[Donkey]

I thought colored scroll bars looked good.

Then I validated some of my pages and noticed that the colored scrolls were gone. So I did a search on this forum and found this thread which has just about convinced me to forget the colored scrollbars.

Then I noticed the scroll bars are colored on this forum?

So is it all down to personal taste or what?

[liorean]

No, it's all down to whether you put standards, accessibility, usability and good coding practice before eye candy and proprietary behavior and functionality.

[ArcticFox]

Re: Coloring scrollbars, usability pros and cons.

Originally posted by Mhtml

This will be heavily moderated and posts which I or other people feel to be pretty irrelevant will be removed or edited.

All posts should have good spelling and grammar and clearly outline what you are trying to say so that people who read this, an no doubt many will can see why and why not they should or shouldn't use this technique based on pros and cons ...

What kind of fish is this? AntiColouredScrollBar boot camp?

Man! You sure do like your threads whipped....

I say go with coloured scrollers. As most people here think that your site is on their browser so it makes it theirs, I see MY site as MY art to be displayed MY way. I'm not writing a book; everything in black and white, T's crossed Is dotted... I am creating it. Painting a picture, if you will.

Now, with that said, there are those 13 year old script kiddies who insist on screwing with our eyes and senses, but they'll eventually learn and grow up like the rest of the world, but that's okay. If one does not like coloured bars, fullscreen/chromeless, frames, outdated tags, etc... then stop visiting the kiddie haxor sites!

-A.F.
(taking a deep breath and clicking the [back] button is all it takes.)

**and another thing, my site doesn't 'validate' from its first line of code. In fact the validator has fits just trying to print out all its imaginary mistakes it finds. Does it matter at all? Nope. Why? Because my site still shows up the way I want it to in all browsers I have access to. **

end of rant

[mindlessLemming]

Re: Re: Coloring scrollbars, usability pros and cons.

Originally posted by ArcticFox

**and another thing, my site doesn't 'validate' from its first line of code. In fact the validator has fits just trying to print out all its imaginary mistakes it finds. Does it matter at all? Nope. Why? Because my site still shows up the way I want it to in all browsers I have access to. **

end of rant

LOL! Welcome to the forums,
You're gonna be popular round here

[liorean]

Re: Re: Coloring scrollbars, usability pros and cons.

Originally posted by ArcticFox
What kind of fish is this? AntiColouredScrollBar boot camp?

Not at all. We are just taking the future of the web into consideration, as well as our users, in difference to just taking our selves into consideration. We're concerned with The Right Way To Do It™

I say go with coloured scrollers. As most people here think that your site is on their browser so it makes it theirs, I see MY site as MY art to be displayed MY way. I'm not writing a book; everything in black and white, T's crossed Is dotted... I am creating it. Painting a picture, if you will.

We do not see the page as ours because it displays in our browser. The document is your do do whatever you want with. However, the scrollbars are not part of the document, they are part of the user interface, and the user interface is not yours to mess with, It belongs to the user, and the user alone.

Now, with that said, there are those 13 year old script kiddies who insist on screwing with our eyes and senses, but they'll eventually learn and grow up like the rest of the world, but that's okay. If one does not like coloured bars, fullscreen/chromeless, frames, outdated tags, etc... then stop visiting the kiddie haxor sites!

The question really is if the user should change because of the site, or if the site should change becaquse of the users. I say the user is the single most important thing to consider when developing for the web, so that is the stance you should take when developing a site.

**and another thing, my site doesn't 'validate' from its first line of code. In fact the validator has fits just trying to print out all its imaginary mistakes it finds. Does it matter at all? Nope. Why? Because my site still shows up the way I want it to in all browsers I have access to. **

It matters, especially when you come asking for help. First of all, a validating site gives us an important signal - that you are trying as much as you can, yourself. It's a signal of cluefulness. From our point of view, and that of the users, the important thing is, for each and every user, that the site behaves as the user expects it to do. This means we expect a site to not destroy the back button. We expect the site to not change our user interface, including scrollbars. We expect the site to not break if we turn off JavaScript, or images, or stylesheets, or flash, or java. Each and every user is as important - the majority using ie6w with everything enabled are not worth any more than the single user of NCSA Mosaic. We may limit ourselves in what user base we target, but the rule is that all users within the user base should be given full priority, and the users outside that base should still be able to use the site, if not view it as intended. Part of this is related to the separation of content from presentation, and the semantic web. It's part of the idea we have about the purpose of the internet and the web.

As for less religiosly/ideologically held reasons, see <http://diveintomark.org/archives/200..._wont_help_you>, <http://archivist.incutio.com/viewlist/css-discuss/30381>, <http://www.pixy.cz/dogma/dogmaw41/en/>, <http://www.wdvl.com/Authoring/HTML/Validation/Why.html>, <http://valet.webthing.com/page/why.html>

[Donkey]

Okay I admit I am a mere beginer and I bow to the collective knowledge of all you experts out there, but can I ask a couple of basic questions without causing offence.

1) Who decides the scroll bars are part of the browser? To me there is a better argument for saying that they are part of the site. After all they only appear when the content on the page is bigger than the browser window, so they are derived from the page not the browser.

2) Just how does changing the colour of the scroll bars affect the usability of the site. If you are thinking of colour-blind or partially sighted people then surely coloured scroll bars must be better for them than grey?

[ArcticFox]

Originally posted by Donkey

1) Who decides the scroll bars are part of the browser? To me there is a better argument for saying that they are part of the site. After all they only appear when the content on the page is bigger than the browser window, so they are derived from the page not the browser.

You are correct.

Originally posted by Donkey

2) Just how does changing the colour of the scroll bars affect the usability of the site. If you are thinking of colour-blind or partially sighted people then surely coloured scroll bars must be better for them than grey?

Changing the colours doesn't effect the usability at all. And as for blind or partially sighted persons - what's the difference in them visiting my coloured scrollbar site and visiting an art gallery? Do painters take into consideration that there are those of us who can't see at all?

Originally posted by mindlessLemming
LOL! Welcome to the forums,
You're gonna be popular round here

Thanks, but I've been here for years. I left because of the crying that went on about browser compatability... I see not much has changed, though.

Originally posted by liorean
We are just taking the future of the web into consideration, as well as our users, in difference to just taking our selves into consideration. We're concerned with The Right Way To Do It

Oh my... what is this 'future' you speak of? Boring. Bland. Stale. Colourless. Dictionary-style of web design? COME ON! Who are you people and where do you come from?! Is this like a little gang you're all into; like a cult of validating web writers? We all understand that content is king, but why should everyone have to build the same front-page styled sites? I, as a web surfer, am very tired of looking at the same thing over and over. It would be nice to have more sites whos webmasters' minds have been opened to the views of artistic expression, and not just journalism...

Marilyn Manson has a song out that I think would fit this conversation nicely...

[liorean]

Originally posted by ArcticFox
Changing the colours doesn't effect the usability at all. And as for blind or partially sighted persons - what's the difference in them visiting my coloured scrollbar site and visiting an art gallery? Do painters take into consideration that there are those of us who can't see at all?

Well, I say it does. For the first, the user may set the scrollbars on an operative system wide colour scheme, so that all scrollbars look the same. This means that a scrollbar wich does not look like the scrollbar usually do might be not recognised by the user. For the second, they are provided by the window or frame of any kind of application, not only browsers, to allow scrolling of the window contents, which in the browser is the document, when needed. For the third, they are user interaction areas, which means that you shouldn't change them if you can avoid it.

Oh my... what is this 'future' you speak of? Boring. Bland. Stale. Colourless. Dictionary-style of web design? COME ON! Who are you people and where do you come from?! Is this like a little gang you're all into; like a cult of validating web writers? We all understand that content is king, but why should everyone have to build the same front-page styled sites? I, as a web surfer, am very tired of looking at the same thing over and over. It would be nice to have more sites whos webmasters' minds have been opened to the views of artistic expression, and not just journalism...

No, not boring at all. Not bland or stale, and certainly not colourless. But, it is a future with a set of rules, made for the user's benefit. Content that can be described in a media independent way, as well as a media dependent way, should be described thus. Things that can be done in a future compatible, standards compliant way instead of a proprietary way, should be done thus. Colours, patterns and shapes, as well as sound, motion and interaction, that are not content, should be used in such a way that a minimalist user agent, e.g a specific medium parser, can get at the content in a way that makes it well structured and ordered without being disturbed by features only present in other media, which those that have user agents that support those other media will still be able to present to the user. A separation of content from presentation based on structure and semantics that does not hamper any single media, but provides a way for other media to get at the essence of the document, the content. In some cases the presentation or the meta data happens to be the actual content, and such cases may never be entirely able to use this philosophy, but the majority of the sites on the web are not such. A web page is a document, the content of which should be presentable in any medium. The presentation may differ wildly between media, but the content is the same. So, our intention is not to make you unable to do something you already can, with the exception of that being a destruction of the usability in any medium. We already live in the future of our past, and we must make sure that our pages will be presentable in the future of the present, because that is when they will be used. And following that, we should ensure future compatibility. We should write to the standards because that is what we know will last.