> "Simply hide all of the content which is not the article until the user reaches it. ... “But how do you implement this” you ask? Easy. (Be warned though, this code is untested!)"
First off, I wouldn't call that "Easy" code, or an "Easy" solution if that it is untested? More like a hypotheses. Secondly, I don't think that is a good alternative solution at all. That seems like a very messy way to handle the indication by changing the size of the scrollbar based on user triggered events.
While there are some decent points in this article (such as not splitting up your content into pages for ads), I think it still doesn't do a good job of defending why the top vertical bar for progress indication is bad. Nor does it give a good alternative.
And, as clone1018 pointed out in another comment, I don't think the indication feature was meant to be this ground-breaking UX feature or anything. I think it's more of some eye-candy for his blog.
I would be much more interested in a counter argument article on using the top horizontal bar for loading purposes (like YouTube does), since that is becoming more of a common UX feature.
You seem to be conflating two different discussions.
The OP is not talking about the progress bar as an indicator of page loading, like the other discussions on HN recently. Instead, he was mentioning someone's suggestion that it be used like a scroll bar to mimic the progress of scrolling down the page.
> First off, I wouldn't call that "Easy" code, or an "Easy" solution if that it is untested? More like a hypotheses. Secondly, I don't think that is a good alternative solution at all. That seems like a very messy way to handle the indication by changing the size of the scrollbar based on user triggered events.
It's not exactly untested, there are lots of sites that wait to load in comments via AJAX until the user has scrolled down to the comment section. Many simply hide comments until the user clicks "show comments". Both are valid alternate solutions to the initial counterpoint ("what about the comments section!!!").
First off, I wouldn't call that "Easy" code, or an "Easy" solution if that it is untested? More like a hypotheses. Secondly, I don't think that is a good alternative solution at all. That seems like a very messy way to handle the indication by changing the size of the scrollbar based on user triggered events.
While there are some decent points in this article (such as not splitting up your content into pages for ads), I think it still doesn't do a good job of defending why the top vertical bar for progress indication is bad. Nor does it give a good alternative.
And, as clone1018 pointed out in another comment, I don't think the indication feature was meant to be this ground-breaking UX feature or anything. I think it's more of some eye-candy for his blog.
I would be much more interested in a counter argument article on using the top horizontal bar for loading purposes (like YouTube does), since that is becoming more of a common UX feature.