Date Picker Show & Tell Part 2

[Allison Bloodworth]

Hi Antranig,

Thanks much for your comments! I agree that it could be jarring for  
users if the viewport jumped to show them the entire time picker if it  
was at the very bottom of the page. However, I don't think the  
scrollbars will be an issue--more than likely the scrollbars will  
already be on the page, and there would only be a small adjustment to  
the user's position within the scrollbar (e.g. just as when a page  
loads, the button/block used to move the scrollbar will move up  
slightly to show that there is more page below where the user is on  
the page).

Even if scrollbars did have to appear in the unlikely event that the  
time picker was at the exact place where it's appearance turned on the  
scrollbars, these are *helpful, necessary* (not spurious) scrollbars  
which will allow the user to get to their content. As there is no  
other way to get to the content they are needed, and I think it would  
be a natural inclination for users when they can't get to the bottom  
of the page to look for a scrollbar (so I'd argue they'd be a welcome  
sight). :) Finally, in a pinch if the user didn't immediately realize  
they could scroll, they *could* just interact with the top part of the  
time picker to pick their time, or enter it in the text field.

This may not be the ideal interaction, and is definitely a factor we  
are using to weigh which of the two alternate time pickers would be  
better. We will also strongly consider results from user testing we  
plan to do of the two time pickers, and community input about the  
relative usefulness of each picker for your users, so please do keep  
it coming! :)

Thanks,
Allison

On Dec 2, 2008, at 10:23 AM, Antranig Basman wrote:

> Hi there - just a little clarification of my own -
> Much as with the inline-edit "special characters" family of issues,  
> when I mean to say
> that this is a "technical issue" I don't specifically mean "this is  
> a technical issue
> which we can't think how to resolve" but "this is an issue which has  
> a technical
> origin, but whose fixes have costs whose implications are too awful  
> to contemplate" :)
>
> I hate to sound like a "developer who meddles in usability" but from  
> what I can see,
> the issues of a widget whose presence changes the absolute size of  
> the viewport
> unexpectedly, or still worse, causes scrollbars to appear which the  
> user would have
> to manipulate to successfully use the control (or worse still causes  
> the viewport to
> jump) is a usability nightmare. The unexpected appearance of  
> spurious scrollbars is,
> for example, one of the more serious beefs we have against iframes.
> "Am I wrong?"
> :P
> Cheers,
> Antranig.
>
>
> Eli Cochran wrote:
>>
>> Just a little clarification on what I tested and the results.  
>> Erin's comments are
>> essentially correct but I want to rephrase it slightly so that  
>> there isn't any
>> confusion.
>>
>> I tested what happens when a page is scrolled to the bottom of the  
>> browser window
>> (geekily known as the viewport) and an absolutely positioned  
>> element is popped-up
>> (displayed) at or near the bottom of a page with part of the  
>> element extending below the
>> bottom edge of the browser window.
>>
>> As expected the size of the page is extended so that the scrolling  
>> area of browser
>> encompasses the displayed item and the user can scroll to the  
>> bottom of the absolutely
>> positioned element.
>>
>> This test was done with Firefox.
>>
>> - Eli
>>
>> On Dec 2, 2008, at 9:19 AM, Erin Yu wrote:
>>
>>> We had a productive discussion about the date and time picker with  
>>> Antranig and
>>> Jonathan at the all-hands.  One of the technical concerns was that  
>>> since the time
>>> picker wheel is fixed around the text field, it might get cut off  
>>> when the text field
>>> is at the very bottom of the page. Eli did a quick test and was  
>>> able to tell us that
>>> when the the time picker pops up at the bottom of the page, the  
>>> extra area of the page
>>> can become scrollable to show the full length of the time picker.
>>>
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Allison Bloodworth
Senior User Interaction Designer
Educational Technology Services
University of California, Berkeley
(415) 377-8243
abloodworth at berkeley.edu