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Comment by Touche | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty sure invisible UI started very much while Jobs was in power. Hiding the scrollbar, for example.

I think it's quite a myth that Jobs knew good design. Jobs had a fetish for minimalism. For simple, single use, UIs that's often a good choice. I think that's what made iPods and the first generations of iPhones so well designed. But as smartphones have transitioned into being primary use devices with greater abilities, hidden UIs and extreme minimalism because a worse choice.

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Well, they didn't hide the scrollbar on desktop until Lion, at which point Steve was in quite poor health.

On mobile, and particularly on screens the size of the original iPhone, hiding the scrollbar is a necessary tradeoff for screen real-estate. It also doesn't necessarily hurt usability if you know the exact screen size you're designing for, and can ensure elements are never fully cut off on your initial view.

It hurts usability in several ways. For example, you can’t click on an iOS scrollbar to jump to a specific part of the document. Nor can you use it as an instant reference to determine how long the document is.

> For example, you can’t click on an iOS scrollbar to jump to a specific part of the document.

How would you propose doing that on a 3.5" screen without a mouse or stylus?

> Nor can you use it as an instant reference to determine how long the document is.

You scroll the screen a tiny bit and the scrollbar pops up. Again, keep the size of the screen in mind—making the scrollbar persistent would be a poor use of space.

iOS isn’t just used on 3.5” screens, though - my 8” iPad mini screen could certainly accommodate a scrollbar. I also frequently interact with controls smaller than a scrollbar - apple's 'finger resolving' algorithm seems more than capable of this.

I know it’s still there - that’s why I said “instant”. It’s a very minor concern, I’ll grant you.

I recently discovered that on iOS, you can press on the scrollbar to get direct control of the scroll knob. That allows you to quickly jump to any part of the document without having to thumb scroll through it page by page.

Yes, the original Mac had invisible UI: the double click. It's an undiscoverable operation that people had to be taught, and invented so that Jobs could squeeze two operations onto one button because one button looked cleaner.

Were two button mice even around when the original Mac was introduced? It might not have been due to aesthetics.

In 1983 the best number of buttons was not clearly established. PCs (the few that had mice) were tending to two according to the reference, while workstations were tending to three.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_button#Number_of_buttons

I think some early mice had one button. Other early mice had two or three buttons (that would be chorded for different operations)

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