I would disagree with anyone about the ‘40px isn’t worth the effort’ response, especially if trying to type into a dialogue box while horizontal on a web page. That gives you a half inch of space to work with, and if you are reading any text, if there is a permanent footer as part of the design then that takes up space too.
It always seems like cautionary responses like these are to make ‘your’ life easier rather than your ‘users’ life easier. User testing on my own site, watching someone unfamiliar with the concept of full-page-scrolling and sliding, I often see them touch the address bar and inadvertently end up with a keyboard or other browser-ui action. I agree removing the bar permanently is bad, but sliding it out of the way to allow access to a full-featured site, and it’s there if you tap the time bar, is best for the users.
Users are smarter than we think, and they are smart enough to be annoyed at the things that annoy us, too.
Gerry Straathof
I would disagree with anyone about the ‘40px isn’t worth the effort’ response, especially if trying to type into a dialogue box while horizontal on a web page. That gives you a half inch of space to work with, and if you are reading any text, if there is a permanent footer as part of the design then that takes up space too.
It always seems like cautionary responses like these are to make ‘your’ life easier rather than your ‘users’ life easier. User testing on my own site, watching someone unfamiliar with the concept of full-page-scrolling and sliding, I often see them touch the address bar and inadvertently end up with a keyboard or other browser-ui action. I agree removing the bar permanently is bad, but sliding it out of the way to allow access to a full-featured site, and it’s there if you tap the time bar, is best for the users.
Users are smarter than we think, and they are smart enough to be annoyed at the things that annoy us, too.