Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Sticky headers
Raised as a usability problem by 31 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2012–2026), in 19 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Sticky headers take up screen space and distract with bouncing elements while scrollingUnreviewed
20122026- Sticky header covers the article and forces the reader to dismiss it repeatedly2026-03-18
- Header pops up covering a quarter of the screen, pushing wanted text off-screen when scrolling back2026-03-18
- Fixed headers take up screen space and get in the way while reading2025-02-01
Scrolling up brings a top bar that covers half the text being readUnreviewed
20122026- Navbar pops up and vanishes on tiny scrolls, disrupting reading position2019-12-06
- Scrolling up triggers a top bar that covers half the screen including content being read2018-08-30
- Bars hide on scrolling down and suddenly reappear on scrolling up2018-04-17
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 32 complaints
- Sticky header covers the article and forces the reader to dismiss it repeatedly2026-03-18
- Header pops up covering a quarter of the screen, pushing wanted text off-screen when scrolling back2026-03-18
- Fixed headers take up screen space and get in the way while reading2025-02-01
- Sticky headers, footers, and pop-ups stay on screen and obstruct page content2023-08-21
- Permanently visible headers and footers shrink the usable screen on phones2023-06-28
- Auto-hiding header covers content the user is trying to read2022-09-28
- Fixed header covers half the reading area and obstructs reading while scrolling2022-09-28
- Sticky elements appear scrollable but then refuse to scroll out of sight2022-09-28
- Sticky headers take up screen space and bounce distracting elements into view while scrolling2022-09-28
- Sticky header appears on slight overscroll and persists, so users lose their scroll position2022-09-28
- Sticky headers waste space and hide text when scrolling with the keyboard2022-09-27
- Oversized sticky header and progress indicator distract while reading the article2021-04-20
- Sticky headers hide navigation, forcing users to scroll back up to reach other pages2020-03-20
- Sticky header covers the article text while scrolling2019-12-06
- Fixed header moving while scrolling is distracting and hard to ignore while reading2019-12-06
- Some sticky headers flash video or banners, distracting readers2019-12-06
- Sticky headers waste screen space with items users rarely need2019-12-06
- Sticky headers break spacebar and PgDown page scrolling, so keyboard users can't skim pages2019-12-06
- Navbar pops up and vanishes on tiny scrolls, disrupting reading position2019-12-06
- Sticky headers change page-down scrolling, forcing users to adjust eye movement2018-09-22
- Scrolling up triggers a top bar that covers half the screen including content being read2018-08-30
- Bars hide on scrolling down and suddenly reappear on scrolling up2018-04-17
- Sticky header hides section titles after anchor jumps and shrinks visible page for paging2017-06-27
- Header reappears at slight reverse scroll and covers text being read2017-06-27
- Search scrolls hit just under sticky header, so match stays hidden2017-03-16
- Sticky headers dominate the page when zoomed, making sites unusable2017-03-16
- Fixed header takes up scarce mobile screen space when scrolling2016-12-09
- Fixed header covers part of the screen while reading the page2016-04-05
- Fixed menus take up too much screen, leaving little room to scroll content2016-03-23
- Sticky headers scroll over text and get in the way of reading2013-09-12
- Sidebar stays on screen while scrolling, distracting and cluttering reading2012-07-20
- Fixed element follows the user down the page, distracting and blocking content2012-01-27