scrolling direction matters

by magpie on January 22, 2008

I finally fig­ured out what it is about the behav­ior of the new (vista) ver­sion of win­dows explorer that is odd.

When you look at the folder con­tents in the right side pane, if there are more fold­ers than will fit WE extends the list to the right (with a scroll bar on the bot­tom of the win­dow) rather than down (with the scroll bar on the right side.)

scroll bar in windows explorer

This is counter to the way extra con­tent is han­dled in every other part of the com­puter uni­verse. Users expect to scroll down, not right.

{ 2 comments }

Sandro January 22, 2008 at 6:23 pm

This UI design decision was made to help drive sales of the yet-to-be-released Microsoft mouse with the second scroll wheel that turns horizontal. :)

magpie January 22, 2008 at 7:39 pm

… and here I thought that the borg had lost it’s touch… thanx for the giggle.

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