So many websites and blogs nowadays implement what is called endless or infinite scrolling.
For those who might not know...endless scrolling means just as the name suggests...you just keep scrolling to the bottomless page...there's literally no end unless you don't give up.
I have no idea what is the design principle behind endless scrolling. If you make a website or a blog...you want people to be able to access the information delightfully. If I feel as if there is no way I am going to find out where something is, of course as a user I will be frustrated.
Now here is normally a scenario...you visit a blog and a few posts interest you and you wonder how many posts are in this blog. In infinite scroll...there is no way you will know how many posts or articles are in the said blog. So you begin scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling...yes you see so much information but for the curious like me...wouldn't you like to know where this scrolling end? How many more posts or articles here that I might be interested in? So you continue scrolling only to find out you have already wasted like 5 minutes and the scroll bar now is like a quarter of an inch...you give up! Frustrated of course for not satisfying your own curiosity...Or if you accidentally open one post...you're back to square one because infinite scrolling won't remember where you last were.
YouTube had the same problem a few years ago, in the recommended/suggested videos...you could scroll till you were tired. Right now I think they have lowered the number of the suggested videos.
So what's the solution?
For a blog, please put down page numbers (pagination). This will allow a user to know how many pages are there or how many posts...I can just navigate from page 1 to page 2 or I can go all the way to the first post ever created. As a user I will feel as if I am in control...plus I can easily save that specific page and revisit it later...something which is impossible with endless scrolling.
Stop making online experiences with endless scrolling! They're terrible for the user.
Can you imagine if Google had endless scrolling? It would have been terrible! ...They know better that's why they show you pages at the bottom of the search...to give you an idea of how many pages are there. And in doing so they save you so much time...because an average user will normally be satisfied with the results on the first page.
That's my rant!
Top comments (1)
Very fair arguments!