Fixed elements in web pages
You know, I came across the Weightshift redesign some time ago from df. It made me think of an issue I have with websites with fixed elements on the page - headers, footers, left/right nav, backgrounds that don’t scroll with the page. They just sit there fixed to their position in the browser.
Gruber notes that the design with its fixed footer breaks his pagedown by covering up text at the bottom. That would probably peeve me, but I’m a scroll wheel scroller and it works fine. I just find that I don’t like fixed elements on the page. I find it visually jarring, I expect things to move when I scroll and it bugs me a little when they don’t. I’m sure it’s part just what I’m used to and part working for so long with companies for whom screen real estate is so important that permanently losing a bit of it to nav would seemed sacrilegious.
I mean, it isn’t going to make me not visit a site or not appreciate it’s design, but it will annoy me a little. Am I nuts?
November 11th, 2007 at 10:53 am
If you’re nuts, then so am I. The word I use is “vertiginous.” It’s not as distracting as the little sprites that follow you down the page, like the OpinionLab “feedback” widget, though I can at least understand and appreciate the utility of those.
November 11th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Gross, that feedback box is extra annoying because it isn’t even fixed, it’s very jumpy as it works to keep up with your scrolling. Sigh.
November 12th, 2007 at 12:19 am
I never design pages with fixed objects, it has to be a sort of non negotiable thing with the client, otherwise I try and talk them out of it. I agree web pages have definitely evolved certain over all feels. Web page physics if you will :) For instance the scrolling your talking about. Some things are just supposed to scroll. One interesting aspect of creating designs in a program like Flash (at least to me) is that even if the client wants something constant you have enough resources to make that happen in a more creative way, trying to incorporate it into the over all page more rather than having it so detached. (funny how detached things can be when you attach them).
November 12th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Interesting - I imagine there could be ways to get the advantages of fixed elements that aren’t so distracting. I think I’ve seen it before, but I can’t recall.
Another problem I have with flash and fancy javascript as well is when they break scrolling - that is, when I can’t use the scrollwheel on my mouse to scroll. Boy I hate that.
November 12th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Sure you can. One way is to use flash elements. Easy enough to do if your designing concept to completion. Another is with code. An example is here:
http://www.flashkit.com/movies/Interfaces/Navigation/Scroller-ben_shit-11974/index.php
November 12th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Oh, I didn’t mean to say that you couldn’t have scrollbars in javascript or flash - what I don’t like about them is that they don’t listen to the scrollwheel on my mouse, so I have to actually drag the little slider around. How 2006.
November 12th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Yes, I know, that last movie (you have to click on where the movie is because its made for full screen application unless you change that) Your wheel should work. Mine works groovy.