In many cases yes we do that too. Text is hidden until the user performs an action, types something in, or hovers/focuses over an element (think tooltip).
Why... (Tooltips I understand, as those are often something you only need a single time.)
Yes I am a vocal opponent of hidden UI elements. Shame on me, I guess.
If I were the innocent target of a firing squad, I would be a vocal opponent of the actions being taken against me there, too. "It's just a vocal minority. Fire."
Being a vocal minority doesn't make me wrong. But it probably means I have thought about the problem space more than those who are not. At that point you put the A/B testing aside and you talk to the people and listen to them, and see if they are informed or if they are crackpots.
For the simple reason that we want to present to the user only the information that is necessary for them to accomplish their immediate goal, and nothing more.
If you aren't scrolling, then the scrollbar provides little information in proportion to the amount of space it consumes. If you are scrolling, then the scrollbar is very important and it gets displayed. If you want to know where in a document you are, our experience is that users tend to already have a good idea of where in a document they are based on multiple cues including the fact that they are likely the ones who positioned themselves to that point in the document already. In the very rare moments where they need that cue, they can move their mouse (scrollbar appears when the mouse moves).
As screens are a finite resource, by minimizing information that isn't necessary towards accomplishing a goal, we can maximize the information that is.
If you are reclaiming the sliver of space occupied by a scrollbar because you need it to display other information, do you also do this on high resolution displays where the scrollbar does not consume as large of a fraction of available space, or do you just apply the rule no matter the situation?
I would genuinely love to see a UI where valuable information is unavailable without scrolling because of the presence of a scroll bar. I am not being sarcastic or snarky. I would love to see that UI
Sure, this is what our current software looks like but it's in the process of being redesigned:
[1] is an image comparing a list of trades with and without the scrollbar. The scrollbar literally hides an entire column's worth of data.
[2] is an image of a typical trader's layout so you can get a sense of the context and how the size of a scrollbar can add up.
As you can see, given that the scrollbar consumes around 20% of the width of a trade list, by eliminating it a user can can add one additional trade window for every 5 that are open. That's literally money in their pocket and our pocket.
Some additional info is that the Windows 10 titlebar is too tall and those minimize/maximize buttons are enormous, so we redesigned a new title bar that is not only slimmer, but allows us to make better use of it while still retaining the functionality. I am not going to declare that we are the masters of UX and everything we decide is absolutely correct, but we do really care about these issues because they make a measurable impact on our performance.
Alright. I had a feeling you were in stock trading. Those users are power users (truly) and know what they are asking for.
That said, almost all of those windows in the "typical usage" image have space enough to display everything fully AND show a scrollbar. And I would imagine a trader would shrink those windows enough to allow another window or two in the row, and be very happy without a scrollbar.
On another topic, I have an AutoHotKey script that, with some modification, may be of extreme use to those people. Felt appropriate to inform you of it.
