What is the best way to indicate that you can scroll in an area when the area doesn't have a scrollbar?

Question

The only thing I could think of was saying: "Scroll to see full menu" above. What are some other ways people are doing it?

Answer 1

Hello,

Well, if an area is scrollable then it should have a scroll bar. If it doesn't have a scrollbar is because whoever built it decided to remove the scrollbar and that's a very bad UX decision.

By default, HTML is built to create scrollbars where needed and thus we should allow that to happen. It's the most common visual cue users have to understand there's additional content that can be accessed by scrolling.

Looking for alternative solutions like "Scroll to see full menu" is basically putting out a fire that shouldn't be there in the first place. At that point you now have more UX issues to worry about than you should: location of the message, font size, contrast, usability, interaction, accessibility, compatibility, scalability, to mention a few.

By allowing the native scrollbars to do their job you, and the user, no longer have to worry about any of the factors I mentioned above.

Now, if you can think of a use case where scrollbars aren't necessary even though there is content to be accessed by scrolling, please let me know and we can talk it out, I'd be glad to help.

A link to something like this would also be helpful.

Regards.