WWW.THEDILLDESIGN.COM

thedilldesign.com https://thedilldesign.com/why-horizontal-scroll-bars-are-bad/

By ChrisDill

Why Horizontal Scroll Bars are Bad

Why horizontal scroll bars are bad

Some of us may hear horizontal scrolling and wonder what in the heavens in this especially when you do not haveany knowledge in software or web design. Well, horizontal scrolling is defined as the ability of a program to scrollhorizontally using the user interface windows scroll bar. This horizontal bar is in many instances not used and notseen since it is not needed. Before I go any further it is important to know there is also vertical scrolling. Thesescroll bars are normally located on the bottom or far right of a window that allows you to move the window viewingarea top, bottom, left or right.Horizontal scrolling may not be the best and this is why:

The scroll bar is unusual

Most of the websites don’t use horizontal scroll bars and as a visitor it will is not natural to scroll sideways as mostof us are used to scrolling up and down. The fact that most mouse scroll only up and down may limit the web siteuser from scrolling sideways hence your main aim will not be achieved.

The bars scroll bars take up significant space – The most common resolution, In 1024×768 resolution thistype of scroll bar may take up about 1000×17 pixels which are the same amount of screen as a half bannerand about the height of an Ad Sense Link Unit.Hence, with tabbed browsing and tool bars, the webbrowsers are already showing less of the page. This makes it a poor choice for any web designer.

Capturing user attention is your first priority –

Anytime a visitor visit a site it only takes a few seconds todecide if the visitor will continue reading it or he will moveto another site. Most of us don’t even scroll down to seewhat else may be interesting.Having the visitor scrolldown then sideways may be a lot of work and manypeople will tend to avoid it. Making user experience easyis your goal and horizontal scroll bars may not offer youthis.

Horizontal scroll bars can hide advertising – Mostadvertisements are on the right side of the pages andthis would mean that some of the advertisementscould be hidden and, therefore, a loss to all theadvertisers paying for that spot or for a specificperiod of time. That would mean that some or all of an ad could be hidden. This may make you lose yourincome on advertising since what they worked hard to show the visitors did not achieve its end goal.

The elderly will often have trouble getting to the right spot in scrolling menus and other small scrollingitems. Hence having horizontal scroll bars will be stressful to them.

At the end of the day ask yourself what experience do you want your web users to have and you will be able tochoose the best scrolling for them.Choose the best scroll bars and choose the best.

About the author

Christopher is a web developer, designer, and SEO specialist. He runs a SEO specific company athttps://www.virginiaseo.org and really enjoys design and marketing.