Quantitative finance where information density is of the utmost importance and our interest isn't in getting the most number of users, it's retaining the most skilled users.
For our application we have many tables of data that are narrow in size, maybe two or three columns, and having a scrollbar constantly displayed takes up valuable screen real estate that could be used to display more tables.
It's also a fallacy to think that because we optimize our application for 90% of users, that we end up losing 10% of them. People are not static automatons that make binary decisions about using your product strictly on the basis of how scrollbars function. People are fairly flexible and can adapt, get used to new things, and balance many different factors against one another when making choices.
This goes against the rule of thumb where if 5% of attendees are vegetarian you serve vegetarian and omnivores will adjust to it, while if you served the omnivore option the vegetarians would likely go hungry (more likely go find something else nearby if possible).
No because it's not as extreme as that. What you are talking about something that Taleb talks about which is a kind of minority rule [1] where for example kosher people will not eat food that isn't kosher, but non-kosher people will eat food that is kosher and so the end result is that Coca-cola, Pepsi, etc... all ensure their products are kosher even though only like 1 percent of their customers care about it.
That is a very important principle in UI design and we certainly adhere to it and take it into account, but this has nothing to do with that. We're talking about scrollbars here, and unfortunately the people who prefer to always see a scrollbar are not going to ditch your product strictly on that one single criteria.
If the business is "restaurants", but if it's "programming language conferences" I don't think vegetarians are going to start picking up C++ because PyCon didn't have a vegetarian option. No one is picking software based on scrollbar preferences just like no one is picking software conferences based on their dietary restrictions.
But unlike Apple or most other replies in this thread, your case has a valid justification: omitting scrollbar increases information density and usability, which are good things. I'm also guessing you train new users, so that there's no possibility they won't realize some table isn't scrollable just because there's no scrollbar.
We don't know Apple's justification for it but I wouldn't be surprised if their testing concluded something similar to ours... users don't depend on an always visible scrollbar to scroll.
It would be crazy to ignore 10% of the user base--to provide them no means to use your product or some features therein. However, it's not crazy to reprioritize their preferences. This happens all the time, and rightly so--if you can choose between delivering real functional value for a supermajority of users or cater to usability preferences of 10% of users, the former should win every time.
Note also the distinction between "prefers scrollbar" and "touched the scrollbar at all". At most 10% of users prefer scroll bar; the parent only claimed that 10% of users touched the scroll bar at all.
if you can choose between delivering real functional value for a supermajority of users or cater to usability preferences of 10% of users, the former should win every time
Not "every" time. I work in healthcare. I don't have the luxury of leaving ANYONE out.
I'm talking about preferences, not accessibility requirements. And healthcare is one of the most dramatic examples of giving no shits about preferences (I also work in healthcare, but on the provider side, not the consumer side)--my major hospital chain's web portal deliberately breaks on browsers (and versions) that it doesn't explicitly support. You certainly don't have to support scrollbars unless they're billed as an accessibility requirement.
Healthcare is certainly a "fun" space, but catering to scrollbar purists isn't usually part of the gig. :)
> I'm talking about preferences, not accessibility requirements.
It's not clear to me that those two things are neatly separated. I have a ~25th percentile visual memory - my brain does very poorly having to process and retain images, but text is very easy. I can, eventually, navigate visually, but at a much higher energy cost than the average. Is my affinity for text a preference or an accessibility concern?
I wouldn’t be surprised if some tiny portion of the population could legitimately claim an accessibility reason for scrollbars, however tenuous. But certainly not 10% or even 10% of 10%. Further, “accessibility requirements” refers to explicit, medically diagnosed issues not speculation about a preferences vs needs continuum. Moreover, as previously mentioned, accessibility requirements are out of scope—the assumption is that we’re talking about (at most) 10% of users who have a simple preference or custom for scrollbars. If we’re talking about accessibility the calculus is different, but that’s a distinct topic for another thread.
Nearly every industry. Pareto optimization implies that in almost all circumstances you get more bang for the buck investing in improving the experience of your 90% of users than the remaining 10%.
Seems a bit hypocritical to me, since I have hardly ever met a startup programmer/sales person that cares about the accessibility for disabled people of their product.
What industry are you in where you can ignore 10% of the user base?