Google Docs Scrollbar Page Counter

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✋ What is it?

This is a solution found in Google Docs document viewer. This solution is a small contextual tooltip that shows up next to the scrollbar indicating the current page position of the document.

🤲 How does this interaction or solution work?

After opening a document hosted on Google Docs, users will notice that when they scroll through the document a small tooltip with the current page / total page count shows up next to the scrollbar. This small tooltip only shows up when the user exceeds certain scroll speed. This behavior is expected since the functionality is meant to provide positional context on large documents.
We tried to find this solution in other products of the Google Work Suite, but this seems to be a solution used exclusively on Google Docs.

🙌 How does this interaction or solution work?

Feedback Look and Keeping Context.

Reviewing or editing large documents can be an exhausting task with large amounts of cognitive overload. By providing this little mechanism, Google is alleviating the process of finding specific pages or getting the right context when working on their documents tool. This solution also helps users to have a relatable mental model (page numbers) that can be used as a way to facilitate collaboration among co-workers. (It's easier to tell a colleague to find the error on a specific page, than trying to provide contextual hints on where to find it).


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