1y ago

Ask Lemmy: Traditional vs natural mouse scrolling; which do you use?

Despite being a heavy cell phone user for more than 25 years, it only recently occurred to me that vertical navigation on most phones is inverted when compared to traditional computers. You swipe down to navigate upward, and up to navigate downward. I recently spent time using a MacBook, which apparently defaults to this "natural" scrolling (mobile-style), and I was completely thrown off by it.

I've been using natural scrolling on a couple of my own desktops ever since, mostly as a mental exercise, and I wondered...how many of you folks prefer this method?

119 comments

Trackpads and touchscreens get the phone way of scrolling.
These feel like you are interacting with a piece of paper, so you move the paper around.
Mousewheels get the traditional way of scrolling.
Mice are more like controlling something.
It just is. Like F1-F12 keys are always F1-F12 keys, not the alt-function (like media/brightness etc).
I hate that Apple has called it "natural" Vs "reverse" in some psychological reconfiguring that you are going against the grain if you don't agree with them (as opposed to them changing the established standard).
- I use natural on the trackpad and traditional using a mouse.
- Good points all around, though I do use my alt-functions more than the function itself.

It's a good thing Apple doesn't make cars. They'd put the gas pedal on the left just to be different, and claim it's more "natural" that way.
- Don't give Tesla any ideas.
  
  Yeah, they would probably let you pay a small fee per month for this feature.
- My absolute biggest complaint with my BMW. The electronic gear shifter. Want to go backwards? Push the shifter forward. Want to go forwards? Pull the shifter backwards. Fucking genius! <\s>
  
  Isn't that somewhat accepted like with sequential transmissions pushing forward downshifts and pulling back upshifts
- [This comment has been deleted by an automated system]

I never remember which one is natural and which one is reverse. When I use a mouse or a trackpad, I am moving the scroll bar. When I am using a touch screen, I am moving the content.
- That makes sense and is probably the best no-nonsense rationale I've seen yet.
  
  my idea is that when I scroll on the mouse, the bottom part of the scroll wheel touches the content
- This makes sense to me too. The way I have always viewed it is that if you were to lay the mouse wheel on the screen itself, it would behave the way as if it were interacting physically.

The thing you're apparently calling "traditional" seems natural to me.
I've never really stopped and thought about it before, but as far as I can figure, my brain expects the part of the system that does or would actually touch the surface to drag the screen in a particular direction through the simple workings of physics.
On a touchscreen, it's simple - it's my finger actually touching the screen and it drags the screen around exactly as I'd expect.
With a mouse, my finger isn't the important part because it's not touching the surface (or more precisely, the mousepad that substitutes for the surface). Rather, my finger is contolling the mouse, and the underside of the mouse is touching the surface. And as far as that goes, the "traditional" way it works is correct - when I move my finger downward on the mouse wheel, the bottom side of the wheel - the part that would actually be touching the surface if it was a purely mechanical system - is moving upward, so would drag the screen upward.
So to me, that's what's natural.
- I couldn't explain this as good, but to me tradition has always felt natural. 100% on a mouse, but also mostly on a trackpad.
- I think the big contention comes with touchpads. They are half way between a mouse and a touch screen. Traditionally they acted like mice, you two finger down to scroll down like on a mouse wheel - but you have no wheel so are directly touching the surface. Much more like a touchscreen.
  So to me traditional feels natural to me on a actual mouse, but on a trackpad natural feels more natural. I really hate that on the Mac you can only set all mouse life devices one way and not be able to have actual mice behave different to trackpads like I can on Linux systems.
- It's the most logical thing, and yet some people give me a weird look if I explain these thoughts to them.
  I can't even begin to describe how wrong it feels to invert it. My entire being refuses to accept that.
  (you do realize I'm agreeing with you?)
- I never was able to completely realize that it's the wheel that makes it intuitive --- that pulling down on the wheel makes the bottom of the wheel pull the screen up. But it makes so much sense, and it's why I use "traditional" scrolling on mouse.
  
  It's something I was never actually conscious of until I stopped and thought about it yesterday because of this thread. I've just always moved the scroll wheel in the way that it seems like it should work, and it works the way it seems like it should.

"Natural" only seems natural if you were raised mostly on touchscreen devices, I've never seen a desktop have inverted scroll like that.
On a side note, Why do so many Linux programs not support auto scrolling by default if at all?
I didn't even know autoscroll was the name of middle clicking to scroll were your mouse went until I switched to Linux and noticed it missing in certain places.
- I think it is because of Unix/X11 tradition of the middle mouse button being for pasting the most recently selected text.
- I think the only place I've ever seen autoscrolling available was Libre Office, and I turned it off there because nothing else has it.
  
  Firefox does too, but iirc it has to be enabled in about:config.

There is nothing natural about "natural scrolling".
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- It feels like gaslighting.
- I guess it depends on what the base line is. When reading a large news paper for example, I presume most people hold it steady in their hand and move their head to progress. Which would be the "traditional scrolling". If you assume a large scroll of paper (ancient egyptian style) I guess moving the scroll and keeping the head (mostly) steady works fine or even better. That would be the "natural scrolling".
  But yes, in modern times I can't think of an equivalent of the scrolls to explain why we would consider that "natural", if we don't do it outside of the computer.

In the beginning, the mouse did not have a wheel. The only way to move the view was by dragging the scrollbar with the mouse pointer. So when we got mouse wheels, it was easy to just connect the wheel to the scrollbar. And thus the traditional direction makes sense since you are moving the scrollbar, not the view. With time, the scrollbars became more and more hidden, and we got a disconnect between what we were scrolling (the almost hidden scrollbar) and what we thought we were scrolling (the view). When you think of it as manipulating the view directly, the natural scroll makes sense. Because that is what we do in touch devices (manipulate the view directly).
That said, I use traditional scrolling because it's what I am used to.
- I think you're right - but it's slightly confusing that you're using the word 'view' to mean the opposite of what the diagram in the OP means.
  The diagram uses 'view' to refer to some kind of imaginary viewing window placed over a large static content; other way of putting it is that 'view' refers to a camera pointed at the content; and 'content' refers to the thing that you are trying to look at or read. In any case, I don't think you've used the word incorrectly - but just inconsistently with what the post already had!
  
  I didn't even see that picture in the OP. What that diagram calls a view I would call a viewport. But yes, it would have been better to use the same terminology as OP.

Natural is totally unnatural.

Traditional with mice, natural with touchpads.
Interesting story, I used traditional scrolling with touchpads all my life until I spent three years exclusively using a desktop. Came out of it suddenly rewired to scroll like I do on my phone.

Traditional for mouse, natural for touchpads.
- Yep, my Sway config has
  undefined
  
  input type:touchpad natural_scroll enabled
- This is the way

Real gangstas also switch their PGUP and PGDN keys to natural scrolling.
- Easy there Satan

I use traditional scrolling for everything except touch screens.

Traditional - unless it is fingers on the screen!

Down is down and up is up
- Unless it's a stick/yoke.
  Pull is up, push is down.
- Right?!! Consider this - if you replace the scroll wheel with two buttons, which one would you press to scroll down?

You meant traditional or the wrong way. There's nothing natural about it.

Traditional for both scroll wheels and trackpads (trackpads are emulating a mouse, you heathers!) And inverted Y for gaming.
- I think trackpads emulating a mouse should be considered a poor implementation, a trackpad is different than a mouse and we should utilize that with the design. A trackpad is best imo when combined with gestures, almost as a hybrid between a typical touchscreen and mouse. For example pinching motions, two/three finger tapping, two handed use, etc are all options for a trackpad that don't work (or work poorly) on a mouse.
- I used to use inverted Y, but it stopped feeling right at some point in the Xbox 360 era and I switched.
  I think it was the first console gen where FPS really took off. Like there were FPS on PC for a long time before that, and Halo was pretty big on the Xbox, but the PS2 ones were all kind of clunky and experimental.
  I think I only used inverted Y to start with because the only first person games I used to have were flight sims.
- I consider trackpads to emulate the touch of the screen (so like a phone). So natural scrolling for me.
- I used to play games with both inverted X and Y. But lately (last 10-15 years) inverted X was often not an option so I had to force myself to play both axis non-inverted. It took a few months but it feels natural now.
  
  Inverted Y I get, but inverted X?
  Explain yourself, weirdo.
- Nah a touchpad feels more like a smartphone display than a mouse, so "natural" scrolling it is. Inverted Y for gaming too. I think it depends on what you grew up with - playstation and Xbox don't use it per default but Nintendo (at least old consoles and games) does I think, so I cannot switch back to not inverted, it feels unnatural.

I hate how natural is called natural cuz there's nothing natural about it, when using a touchpad or mouse you're controlling the viewport, mouse down should move the viewport down
- Seems to be a common thing in the UX design world to give your ideas very humanist or comfy sounding names. I get the intention to make change sound less threatening but it gives off very cult-like vibes to me.
  But I ain't a designer by any means, I looked into abit of UX design/philosophy and was turned off by all the buzzwords and seeming lack of discussion around what users actually want.
- I hate how natural is called natural cuz there’s nothing natural about it
  It's all Apple propaganda to make their way more justified to their Apple fanbois.
  
  I think it's because of touchscreens since that behavior on a touchscreen more accurately emulates physically manipulating the items in the screen.

Start realising that the way you're used to scrolling with your mouse wheel, is a cog between you and the service it's moving. Actually you were using natural all along. It was the early touch pads that were wrong and nonsense.
- This! I use traditional with wheels and natural with touchpads
  
  Only correct answer.

If it's a touch screen then the "natural way" is more intuitive, as it feels like grabbing the actual subject matter and moving it in a direction while my view point stays the same. Once my hand is not touching the subject matter, the traditional way is the only one that makes sense to me. I also get annoyed when something has scroll wheel zoom and up is zooming out, I have to reverse that back or I just don't use it.

Traditional for scroll wheels, natural for track pads.

Traditional. I'm too old to learn new things
- I just can't disassociate scrolling from moving the scroll bar.
  
  It's the way I was raised

Traditional for everything, mouse or touchpad, natural scrolling fcks with my brain

I hate "natural" scrolling but I understand that it's only because I've been conditioned for decades with the traditional desktop scrolling method. It's not "better", it's just not worth the effort to retrain myself for something that is merely equivalent.
UI design should not be dictated by what people learned on decades-old systems. It should be designed just as much for new users. So even though I personally hate it, I think it's a reasonable default.
I remember when I first started using GUIs, the scrolling direction seemed counterintuitive. As I introduced beginners to computing in the 90s, I saw many with the same confusion at first. "Why does it move up when I press down?" Everyone got used to it pretty quickly, but that doesn't make it "right".

Traditional for mouse and natural in case of touchpads. That what I use with my Mac :)

Traditional. I imagine the mouse wheel on top of the screen, as if the wheel scrolls the screen content

Natural on mice, traditional on trackpads.
- You monster!
- Now this is an answer I never thought I'd see
- are you sure you don't mean the opposite? Because on trackpads, it's like on touch screen and should go in the same direction no? (I mean, from when I used a MAC, I couldn't use natural scrolling with a mouse, but loved it with the trackpad...)

Traditional all the way. "Natural" is not right.

Traditional for mouse (and trackpoint).
Natural for touchpad.

Traditional for everything. Scrolling down means the view goes down. The mouse controls the camera (the reason why I always invert Y axis on controllers).

We still scroll "down" to the "bottom" of the page, so how is moving your finger up more natural? Maybe i'm just old now.

The scroll wheel is attached to the roller of the scroll, that's how I feel about it.

"Natural" is so ingrained in me by now that Samsung Dex' lack of the option is fucking with me.

I think the reason Apple also went with natural scrolling for mice is because of their Magic Mouse which attempts to act like it's a trackpad. The gestures are similar to how they are on their trackpads, so it's consistent.
Touchscreens and trackpads? Natural scrolling all the way, we're directly moving the content. It works the same as if your two fingers were click and dragging the content, it does feel pretty natural.
With a traditional mouse, I see the wheel as already inverting the movement: imagine the content is the mousepad, traditional mouse wheel direction scrolling down would be pushing the content under the mouse upward. Although I think the real reasoning is probably just either you're controlling the scroll bar or the engineers just thought that's what felt natural and intuitive to them at the time. It was probably born as basically just a more granular page up/down button that became a wheel.

Curiously, I used to work teaching tech-illiterate elderly people how to use computers/phones and they always expected the behavior to be like natural scrolling. Perhaps, it's indeed the natural way...

Traditional with an actual mouse, natural on my track pad. On the track pad, traditional feels super weird.

It makes no sense to me. A lot of Windows drivers seem to default to it now, so scrolling down on the wheel scrolls up on the screen. I always change it back to the old method, as this way is backwards to be.
- I can't help but wonder if it's only backwards to us because of our learned behaviour. The more I use it, and bounce between the two styles, the more logical it begins to feel. Definitely a paradigm shift.
  
  For me, the macOS way of scrolling is actually the "reverse" method. On my PC with a mouse, I scroll the wheel down and the text goes down. On mobile/trackpad though, I do get what you mean about it being a learned behavior. On one hand (ha), when you drag upwards the content is going upwards as well, even though you're technically just going down the list.
  I like the way that the GNOME desktop settings explains it, personally. They still use the term "natural" for the mobile way of doing it, but use "Traditional" for the standard desktop PC/mouse way of doing it - but even better, they differentiate between the "view" and the "content". Perhaps that's the picture you should use in your post as I think it does a better job of explaining it (as if you first used PC, then the "reverse" method is natural, and vice versa if you grew up using mobile first).
  
  Quite possibly, but even on a laptop touchpad it seems wrong.
  
  you're definitely over thinking a simple personal preference

Traditional for everything that isn't a touchscreen. Partly bc it's what I was raised with, partly practical. It's easier for me to two-finger scroll traditionally on a trackpad since it's less finger/wrist movement. If I use natural my fingernails hit the trackpad making the input unreliable, or I end up having to p much move my whole forearm to scroll. So traditional works better for me personally.
I get the idea behind natural scrolling, but there's that level of disconnect for me since I'm not interacting with screen directly, so my brain thinks of it like a mouse instead of like touchscreen. I'm guessing my brain might think of it differently had I been a little younger; I've used computers to some extent all my life, but didn't own a touchscreen device until college.
Idk, natural scrolling on any pointing device trips me up.

I use traditional on my trackpad. I did get forced into natural scrolling on another device for a while and it wasn't difficult to switch. But I'm not going out of my way to switch. A trackpad doesn't have the same mental model as a touchscreen.
- I agree, I've never gotten the idea that a trackpad is like a touchscreen, there's a disconnect there that makes it feel like a pointing device to me. Maybe I'd feel different with one of those giant macbook trackpads, but I doubt it

If I'm not literally touching the content I'm trying to scroll, I'll stick to the default orientation (scrolling down moves content down). Wayland touchscreen input handling seems to handle this just fine and not couple touchscreen scroll direction to trackpad/mousewheel scroll direction.

Natural, which is somehow not default. Despite being called natural. Not weighing in ok what is right. Just interesting how the language came to be.

I much prefer natural scrolling for trackpads since I can do the same as on my phone: Flick it into the direction I want the content to go and then catch it once it's where I want it to be. Even though I use different fingers, I feel like the muscle memory transfers.
I'm pretty sure windows defaults to that ever since they introduced a proper trackpad API, which was 2016 iirc.
For scroll wheels I use traditional. It's what I've been using all my life and I found no reason to switch.

The normal kind! ;)

I like traditional scrolling, that's how I learnt and how I like it on all my computers.
Unfortunately, I also have a MacBook, which I love! The touchpad scrolls the "Natural" way, like on any modern phone, but if you plug in a mouse, it scrolls the "Natural" way, too. Which I hate! You can change the scrolling direction in the settings, but that will change the scrolling direction for the touchpad as well, so I'm stuck.
It's so frustrating that I gave up using a mouse on the MacBook.
- Wow, that's bad UX, every other OS lets you change it for individual devices or types of devices
- I use a roll reverser app on my macbook to get around this problem. You can configure touchpad to be natural and mouse to be traditional
  
  Can you link me the app?

as someone who frequently must switch between mac/linux/win/etc, i have had no choice but to switch to 'natural' because the varied OSes point you that way now. i used to spend much time learning how to customize each and every setting, but it became more hassle than it was worth to just learn the new way.

No I don't on pc. It feels more natural to do reverse scrolling for me on a mouse. On my laptop when I use a window manager it defaults to reverse scrolling, but when I switch to a desktop environment it defaults to natural scrolling, so I just go with whatever the laptop gives me on the touchpad.

I use both a pc and Mac, as well as my phone and I just get mixed up all the time. Gives me something to think about.

Generally it's more about the interaction. If the user views it as interacting with the viewport, it tends to be inverted. If the user views the interaction as interacting with the scroll bar, it's "natural". Scroll wheel is the only odd one out. However it was introduced prior to mousepads supporting gestures. So it basically started as an extension of the scroll bar interaction, but as mousepads introduced the concept of interacting with the viewport, scroll wheels were given the option to respond either way based on user preference.

I'm glad someone else feels opinionated about this! It seemed to me that everyone I come across these days only knows "Natural"!

if you've flown a plane you probably tend toward natural.

I use a rotary knob for scrolling since I don't own a mouse

Natural, but I use a touchpad.

At work I sometimes switch the scrolling over to traditional. Others get completely thrown out and cannot grok it! 😂

I noticed this in video games rather than on-screen text scrolling. Some of them had a weapon selection, but instead had mouse-wheel-down "decrease" the weapon slot, and mouse-wheel-up "increase" it. However, the game also used the mouse wheel for other things, thus changing it to my preference had some unexpected side effect.
In any case, mouse-wheel to scroll view works because of the mouse-pointer paradigm. Move both mouse-wheel and mouse in the same direction, and the pointer is further along the content. Move them in opposite directions, and the pointer tends to hold position relative to content.

119 comments