Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Horizontal scrolling
Raised as a usability problem by 22 people on Hacker News over 16 years (2009–2024), in 16 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Horizontal scrolling is hard to discover and scrolls wrong directionUnreviewed
20092026- Horizontal scrolling is hard to use without an Apple trackpad or mouse2024-11-30
- Wide content forced into a narrow column requires awkward horizontal scrolling to read2024-05-21
- Horizontal scrolling feels counterintuitive when navigating vertically on the page2023-12-15
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 22 complaints
- Horizontal scrolling is hard to use without an Apple trackpad or mouse2024-11-30
- Wide content forced into a narrow column requires awkward horizontal scrolling to read2024-05-21
- Horizontal scrolling feels counterintuitive when navigating vertically on the page2023-12-15
- Horizontal scrolling is hard to discover and often scrolls the wrong direction2022-03-17
- Horizontal scrolling feels bad and lousy to use for most content2022-03-17
- Hidden scroll bars make horizontal scrolling undiscoverable unless triggered accidentally2022-03-17
- Horizontal scrolling is not discoverable and is unpleasant to use2021-11-04
- Horizontal scrollbar only reachable by scrolling to the page bottom2021-09-21
- Horizontal scrolling is hard to do with a mouse2021-08-11
- Horizontal scrolling is slow, jumps back and forth, and ignores pagination keys2019-12-02
- Scroll speed is wrong and varies across devices, so horizontal scrolling can't be tuned to work for people2019-06-11
- Horizontal scrollbar moving with vertical finger movement is hard to grasp2013-08-21
- Back button jumps between sub-pages instead of returning to the previous page2013-04-15
- Loses place on the page with no anchor for the eyes2013-01-11
- No visual feedback that the content can be scrolled, so users miss it2013-01-11
- Hard to read hierarchical HN comments; nearly impossible to use2013-01-11
- Scrolling up shows a white page or goes to the previous page2013-01-11
- Horizontal scrolling is confusing and adds no understanding2012-12-10
- Users don't notice the horizontal scrollbar and scroll buttons only scroll vertically2012-11-23
- Horizontal scroll is mistaken for a swipe, accidentally navigating back a page2012-03-22
- Horizontal scrolling is unintuitive, making reading PDFs on handhelds frustrating2009-12-28
- Users cannot see horizontal scroll bars, so hidden content goes unnoticed2009-12-27