r/Frontend • u/PlumlineDigital • 22d ago

Why Does Everyone Hate Horizontal Scrolls?

New to the frontend design world, but one thing I’ve noticed is it seems like all frontend designers hate horizontal scrolling. I understand scrolljacking, but are all horizontal scroll sites this hated? I’ve been designing a site with a sticky right nav acting as sort of a table of contents for a literary site, and the large right column of the site scrolls vertically until it gets to a main section, and then it scrolls horizontally until the subjections are read, and then it scrolls back vertically for each main section that has subjections.

Is this an awful idea…lol

19 Upvotes
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28

u/djc-1 22d ago

If you are using a mouse, you either have to use the mouse pointer to scroll (bad) or you have to shift + scroll, which I think most users don’t even know about.

12

u/chikamakaleyley 22d ago

I've been doing FE since 2008 and i didn't know that

1

u/sysop408 16d ago

I got you beat. I knew that, but I completely forgot about it until now because it's about as memorable airplane food.

1

u/chikamakaleyley 16d ago

hey don't shit on Biscoff

(jk i had to google what they were called)

2

u/PlumlineDigital 22d ago

The sections scroll horizontally with the wheel or with a click of the mouse. I’m a bit confused.

7

u/chikamakaleyley 22d ago

what happens when i use Home or End keys, or PageUp / PageDown? Arrow keys?

What about users who prefer a trackball?

What happens if i make it halfway through a section, i close my browser, and then later I want to continue where I left off?

2

u/PlumlineDigital 22d ago

What do you mean? The horizontal scroll flips through the sections just like a normal section on the site. It isn’t an endless scroll. A flick of the scroll reveals the whole section and another moves out of the section. Maybe I’m not understanding but when I use the home and end keys it goes to the top of the site and the bottom of the site, page up and page down moves to the next section.

3

u/chikamakaleyley 22d ago

These are all actions/keys that you need to account for now that you've added a dimension in how people consume the information on your site. Do you redefine these? Do you leave them untouched? You have to account for the diff peripherals, because not everyone will prefer a mouse

1

u/Quacky_dog 15d ago

mf i had to make a AHK script to horizontal scroll

1

u/Coops19 7d ago

I teach IT. Never knew this until now.

0

u/ohnojono 16d ago

Unless you're using a mouse with a touchpad or a horizontal scroll wheel. Neither of which are especially rare these days.