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authorBradley Taunt <bt@btxx.org>2024-06-10 09:41:25 -0400
committerBradley Taunt <bt@btxx.org>2024-06-10 09:41:25 -0400
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+ <title>Stop Using Sticky Navigation on Mobile</title>
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+<main>
+<h1 id="stop-using-sticky-navigation-on-mobile">Stop Using Sticky Navigation on Mobile</h1>
+<p>2019-10-06</p>
+<p>Stop styling your web elements to be &#8220;sticky&#8221; on mobile. This creates a horrible experience for your users and also looks like trash from a UI perspective. Don&#8217;t style your navigation (or any components for that matter) to be &#8220;sticky&#8221; on mobile. They create poor experiences for your users and take away valuable screen space.</p>
+<h2 id="what-do-you-mean-by-sticky">What do you mean by &#8220;sticky&#8221;?</h2>
+<p>The concept of <em>sticky</em> elements include but are not exclusive to:</p>
+<ul>
+<li>Navigations that follow users as they scroll</li>
+<li>Chatbot prompt bubbles eating up half the bottom of the screen</li>
+<li>Banners or modal prompts that pester the user to &#8220;sign up, accept cookies&#8221; etc.</li>
+</ul>
+<p><strong>These are bad and you should feel bad for implementing them.</strong> Spacing and layout is a critical part of a product’s design and greatly impacts the experience of its users. Stop screwing it up with ugly sticky elements.</p>
+<p>First, let&#8217;s breakdown &#8220;sticky&#8221; navigations and why they&#8217;re terrible. We&#8217;ll also go over some easy solutions to avoid making these bad design decisions in the first place.</p>
+<h2 id="the-stalking-navigation">The stalking navigation</h2>
+<p>When you make a decision to eat away <code>&#62;50px</code> of space at the top of the page for your site&#8217;s navigation - you&#8217;re hurting your users. You&#8217;re also making their time interacting with your website more painful.</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wait!&#8221; I hear sticky-nav defenders exclaim, &#8220;this navigation bar makes it so the user can <em>easily</em> interact with the site&#8217;s pages!&#8221;</p>
+<p><strong>What absolute rubbish.</strong> A user should only see a website&#8217;s navigation when they <em>need to use it</em>. This isn&#8217;t rocket science.</p>
+<p>Let&#8217;s a take a look at the problem:</p>
+<p>Knowing when to show navigation can be easily solved where the user isn&#8217;t bogged down with a chunk of their screen permanently taken away, all the while still having access to the navigation. This can be fixed by simply understanding the user context at a given time. See below:</p>
+<p>Here the navigation flows up with the rest of the page as the user scrolls the main content into view. Don&#8217;t worry about creating confusion - the user knows the navigation is still at the top of the page because they <em>watched it scroll out of view</em>. This is best paired by having a matching navigation in the footer of the page as well. That way, when the user makes it to the end of a specific view they can change pages right in the &#8220;footer&#8221;. No need to scroll back to the top.</p>
+<h2 id="the-best-of-both-worlds">The best of both worlds?</h2>
+<p>Maybe you want to hide the navigation without losing the flexibility of it always being accessible at the top of the page? This is possible, although I find it still <em>somewhat</em> intrusive on the user. An easy way achieve this is by displaying the navigation when users perform a specific action, such as:</p>
+<ul>
+<li>Long or multiple upward swipes on the page</li>
+<li>Pull down menu from top of current view (easily shown to user)</li>
+</ul>
+<h2 id="navigations-arent-the-only-culprits">Navigations aren&#8217;t the only culprits</h2>
+<p>I wish that navigation items were the only sinners of the &#8220;sticky&#8221; position on mobile - but they are not alone. A few other problematic components include:</p>
+<ul>
+<li>Chatbot or support &#8220;bubbles&#8221;</li>
+<li>&#8220;Agree to our cookies&#8221; prompts</li>
+<li>Time-based pop-up modals</li>
+</ul>
+<p>Every time you implement one of these components, somewhere in the world a puppy dies. Seriously - don&#8217;t be part of the problem and build these things. Push back on &#8220;marketing research&#8221; or team leads who tell you that this crap works. You&#8217;re making the mobile web worse for everyone and setting a terrible precedent for future developers.</p>
+<p>Stay <em>static</em>, my friends!</p>
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