Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Sticky website headers
Raised as a usability problem by 27 people on Hacker News over 14 years (2013–2026), in 19 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Header reappears on small upward scroll and covers the text being readUnreviewed
20132026- Header constantly appears and disappears while scrolling, distracting the reader2026-03-18
- Header covers text when scrolling back up, and its behaviour differs between sites2025-01-06
- Top bar flaps in and out during scrolling, covering text and causing unwanted overscroll2025-01-05
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 27 complaints
- Header constantly appears and disappears while scrolling, distracting the reader2026-03-18
- Header covers text when scrolling back up, and its behaviour differs between sites2025-01-06
- Fixed branding bar consumes vertical screen space on small landscape laptop displays2025-01-05
- Top bar flaps in and out during scrolling, covering text and causing unwanted overscroll2025-01-05
- Fixed header bar hides the top lines of content and breaks spacebar page scrolling2025-01-05
- Sticky side buttons overlap and obscure the article text on mobile and desktop2024-06-24
- Video stays pinned on screen, taking up space and pushed by dark patterns2023-08-07
- Floating TOC is visually distracting and hides on narrow layouts, adding friction2023-03-14
- Sticky header hides and sidebar slides back into view slowly, obstructing content2022-09-28
- Stacked sticky headers, ads and cookie banners overlap on phones, making it a puzzle to close them2022-09-28
- Navbar creeps down while scrolling up and keeps covering the text being read2022-09-27
- Sticky top banner reappears on slight upward scroll and covers text being read2022-09-27
- Fixed bars and animations clutter the page and make it awkward to use2022-09-27
- Header reappears on small upward scroll and covers the text being read2022-04-13
- Scroll bar is hidden, so users can't tell the frame has more content2022-03-02
- Sticky content that changes on scroll becomes annoying when overused2021-03-06
- Sticky headers take up screen space and get in the way while reading2019-12-06
- Sticky bars cover the content on small mobile screens while scrolling2019-04-10
- Sticky navbar takes screen space and pops in and out while scrolling, unneeded2018-09-23
- Spacebar scrolling hides the first lines of text under the fixed header2017-11-24
- Sticky toolbars occupy up to 30% of the screen and can't be easily blocked2016-06-03
- Persistent top bars cover content; mobile bar reappears on scrolling up, blocking re-reading2015-11-25
- Sticky bars and parallax scrolling effects frustrate the reader while browsing2015-11-25
- Sticky header covers top lines of text after full-page scroll, forcing users to scroll back2014-11-03
- Fixed navigation bars block content, and returning users find no navigation visible2014-08-22
- Fixed header hides content under it, breaking page-down, space and scrollbar reading2013-06-10
- Footer bar takes up content space and gets in the way while reading2013-03-13