Scrollbars. Ever heard of them? They’re pretty cool. Click and drag on a scrollbar and you can move content around in a scrollable content pane. I love that shit. Every day I am scrolling on my computer, all day long. But the scrollbars are getting smaller and this is increasingly becoming a problem. I would show you screenshots but they’re so small that even screenshotting them is hard to do. And people keep making them even smaller, hiding them away, its like they don’t want you to scroll! “Ah”, they say, “that’s what the scroll wheel is for”. My friend, not everyone can use a scroll wheel or a swipe up touch screen. And me, a happy scroll-wheeler, even I would like to quickly jump around some time.
I don’t see them as scroll bar replicas; good ones are very narrow but high contrast, to easily offer a compact visual sense of article length – rather than page length, an important distinction when there are cited sources, recommended articles, and a footer menu. Different functions.
IMO, they should coexist with a well-designed vertical scroll bar.