Public Service Announcement About Infinite Scrolling in Web Design

In web design, infinite scrolling allows you to to literally keep scrolling a page, and more content appears. Most common website use for this would be a blog, magazine, or portfolio. The goal is to keep the visitors on the site by delivering more content. This web design technique eliminates the need for pagination.

This feature typically works by using JavaScript to detect when a user has scrolled near the bottom of the page. Once the user reaches a certain point, the script sends an asynchronous request (often using AJAX) to the server to fetch and display more content without reloading the entire page. This creates a smooth and uninterrupted Browse experience.

That is an upside about the feature. The downside, usually is with the execution. A couple of the more common issues with not implementing infinite scrolling are:

1. Site is not optimized for load speed, so infinite scroll literally kills user experience by making it painfully slow to access new content as the site visitor scrolls the page.
2. Site has a footer that, while built with good intentions, with an infinite scroll ability, the user will be chasing it, or never reach the footer information, unless they have scrolling speed capabilities the likes of Superman.
3. Search engines may have trouble indexing all content on an infinitely scrolling page, as the content is loaded dynamically.

Both issues are bad, but the second, I like to think that the website owner is some sadist who secretly knows how many people they frustrated, because they tried to chase after the footer of the website.

Infinite scrolling is not for everyone. Infinite scrolling is popular on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, where the continuous feed of new content is a core part of the user experience. It’s best suited for sites where the user’s primary goal is to browse and discover new content rather than to find a specific piece of information.

For some, infinite scrolling capabilities on a site could cause information overload, and others, it could backfire, if you are looking to attract buyers and subscribers. In fact, a study from the Nielson Norman Group concludes that infinite scrolling may not be the best solution for most websites, and gives a solid case on some of the user experience issues related to infinite scrolling.

However, information overload issue aside, if you’re a website owner using infinite scrolling on your blog or magazine, or portfolio, or even store, you shouldn’t have a footer area, like social icons, terms of service, and more. That content should go elsewhere, or on a page that doesn’t involve scrolling for ages to try to get to it.

Instead of infinite scrolling, use pagination. Pagination is best for sites where users are looking for a particular item or need to reference content in a structured way. This includes online stores with product categories, forums, and search results where users often need to return to previous pages or jump to a specific page. It’s also ideal for content that benefits from being organized into chapters or sections. The benefits of using pagination in your website’s content design are:

• Better Performance: Since the browser only loads a limited amount of content at a time, pages load faster and consume less memory.
• Improved User Control: Users have a clear sense of how much content there is and can easily bookmark a specific page or return to where they left off.
• Enhanced SEO: Search engines can more easily crawl and index all the content, as each page has a unique URL.
• Clearer User Interface: It provides a defined endpoint, which can be less overwhelming for users looking for specific information.

What are your thoughts about infinite scrolling?