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Years ago, I never used "Next" in Google's search results, because I thought it would bring me to page 11. The next page after 10, because 1..10 were clearly li

by WA 11y ago

Years ago, I never used "Next" in Google's search results, because I thought it would bring me to page 11. The next page after 10, because 1..10 were clearly lined out. Took me a while to understand that "Next" works differently and is somewhat misplaced after "10".

oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
I think the need for "Previous" and "Next" is overstated. Unless your pagination is pixel-consistent from page to page (and at the top of the page), it's going to be fiddly to repeatedly press anyway, and that's the only real benefit. Normally, if you're scanning the pagination links, you'll reach the next page by number way before you reach the "Next" link (obviously, that's not the case with Previous, though!). Same for Start and End, really, if you adopt the 'show the last page or two' approach, so this is possibly better: [1] [2] 3 [4] [5] ... [19] [20] You can then omit a whole class of concerns and just concentrate on the few remaining elements relating to the page numbers themselves.
- ajanuary 11y ago
  People don't scan linearly; they recognise the pagination controls as a block. It's much quicker to jump to the end of the pagination block to find the "next" link than to scan through all of the numbers to find the current page and then find the next page. Also, you're forgetting about the fact the bottom of the page forms a boundary. If you're pagination is at the bottom of the page it is consistently the same distance from the bottom after you scroll all the way down. If you have a mousewheel you can take advantage of this on Google. After you click next the first time, leave your cursor in the same position and use the mousewheel to scroll as you scan the results. Once you hit the bottom, the cursor is over the next link and you can just click. Even if the user isn't advanced enough to use a mousewheel, they can still become familiar with the position of the next link relative to bottom left of the page.

by WA 11y ago

oneeyedpigeon 11y ago

I think the need for "Previous" and "Next" is overstated. Unless your pagination is pixel-consistent from page to page (and at the top of the page), it's going to be fiddly to repeatedly press anyway, and that's the only real benefit. Normally, if you're scanning the pagination links, you'll reach the next page by number way before you reach the "Next" link (obviously, that's not the case with Previous, though!). Same for Start and End, really, if you adopt the 'show the last page or two' approach, so this is possibly better: [1] [2] 3 [4] [5] ... [19] [20] You can then omit a whole class of concerns and just concentrate on the few remaining elements relating to the page numbers themselves.

ajanuary 11y ago
People don't scan linearly; they recognise the pagination controls as a block. It's much quicker to jump to the end of the pagination block to find the "next" link than to scan through all of the numbers to find the current page and then find the next page. Also, you're forgetting about the fact the bottom of the page forms a boundary. If you're pagination is at the bottom of the page it is consistently the same distance from the bottom after you scroll all the way down. If you have a mousewheel you can take advantage of this on Google. After you click next the first time, leave your cursor in the same position and use the mousewheel to scroll as you scan the results. Once you hit the bottom, the cursor is over the next link and you can just click. Even if the user isn't advanced enough to use a mousewheel, they can still become familiar with the position of the next link relative to bottom left of the page.