The iOS browser has always supported “tap the top of the viewport to scroll all the way up,” which largely allows for what you say: just leave the nav way up there. Last time I looked was years ago, and Android Chrome didn’t did this. Does it now?
It’s not obscure. It’s core. Apple has this entire UI philosophy called “revealed power” which is about the UI not having a big button for everything necessarily, and letting the user discover added layers of functionality as they go on. This keeps the UI simple in the beginning, or for people who always need simplicity, but allows others to discover more in time. You don’t have to like it but it’s very intentional.
What’s “discoverable” is also relative. I was on a PC today struggling to figure out how to do something. Eventually I tried double clicking the element in question and that finally worked. I thought wow I don’t use PCs much anymore because double clicking hardly even occurs to me anymore. Can you tell me how any user ever finds out that you need to double click an icon on their desktop? Seems obvious, but there is no label or visible indication that this is what you should do. You’re thinking pshaw that’s obvious, but how did you learn? I’d be very surprised if you can remember.
The iOS browser has always supported “tap the top of the viewport to scroll all the way up,” which largely allows for what you say: just leave the nav way up there. Last time I looked was years ago, and Android Chrome didn’t did this. Does it now?
And almost every actual PC has a ‘home’ key on the keyboard which does the same … unless the website has scripts that hijack it.
Even if it did, how would any user ever find out about this obscure feature?
It’s not obscure. It’s core. Apple has this entire UI philosophy called “revealed power” which is about the UI not having a big button for everything necessarily, and letting the user discover added layers of functionality as they go on. This keeps the UI simple in the beginning, or for people who always need simplicity, but allows others to discover more in time. You don’t have to like it but it’s very intentional.
What’s “discoverable” is also relative. I was on a PC today struggling to figure out how to do something. Eventually I tried double clicking the element in question and that finally worked. I thought wow I don’t use PCs much anymore because double clicking hardly even occurs to me anymore. Can you tell me how any user ever finds out that you need to double click an icon on their desktop? Seems obvious, but there is no label or visible indication that this is what you should do. You’re thinking pshaw that’s obvious, but how did you learn? I’d be very surprised if you can remember.