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> 1. The footer becomes unusable Yep, so just put it in the fixed sidebar. > 2. Performance degrades Not really, if you've developed this the right way - whi

> 1. The footer becomes unusable Yep, so just put it in the fixed sidebar. > 2. Performance degrades Not really, if you've developed this the right way - which is render only items that are currently visible and derender the ones that are above the current scroll canvas. > 3. Analytics is harder to implement > 4. Bookmarking and the back button become problematic I put those together, because they are relevant. Anyway Google suggest how to remove this [1] and even presents a demo [2] 1 : https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/02/infinite-scroll-search-friendly.html https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/02/infinite-scroll-se... 2 : http://scrollsample.appspot.com http://scrollsample.appspot.com > 5. People may suffer from choice paralysis As other people here suggested, this depends on the content. If you work in e-commerce there is quite a habit people to scroll infinitely with a huge amount of products ( disclaimer - I'm the sole developer of `www.bagaholic.me` - bags price comparison website ). > 6. The scrollbar becomes unusable and untrustworthy Not a significant reason at all. Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook proved that. > 7. It’s generally hard to use I think stating that, without some stats is kinda "opinionated". Again based on the content a valid context with fixed sidebar, header is a must.

coldtea 10y ago
I don't find any of the rebuttals convincing. >1) Yep, so just put it in the fixed sidebar. Who said the site has a fixed sidebar? Why create a design that necessitates one? >Not really, if you've developed this the right way - which is render only items that are currently visible and derender the ones that are above the current scroll canvas. So change the list constantly under the user, and thus the scrollbar and relevant position. Plus, the extra coding complexity, and what for? >5) As other people here suggested, this depends on the content. If you work in e-commerce there is quite a habit people to scroll infinitely with a huge amount of products Even in commerce, choice paralysis is a thing, regardless of if people tend to "scroll infinitely" if they are shown a huge amount of products. That they scroll doesn't mean they don't feel the choice paralysis. >6. The scrollbar becomes unusable and untrustworthy FB wants to be immersive and keep you lost deep inside to show you ads, not to do what's best for usability.
- awesomerobot 10y ago
  This argument could go on forever, but why create a design that necessitates a footer to begin with? I mostly agree with the article, but it's crazy to say any one design solution is universally good/bad. There are good and bad ways to implement just about anything.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >This argument could go on forever, but why create a design that necessitates a footer to begin with? Because a footer, like a header, are staples of web design since day one, and work well as anchors that the user knows and expects to find at the top and bottom of the page. They also leave all other (layout) options open. Whereas a sidebar for example, while good in some situations, it prevents e.g. to have full side-to-side images and other such content, or distracts from the main text when reading long form, etc.
  - Retra 10y ago
    Design is primarily about presenting information according to its relevance. A footer is a way of presenting unlikely-to-be-relevant-but-still-necessary information. It is a tool that accomplishes something that is necessary for just about every webpage. "Footers" (or related things like captions) exist in just about every design, and they almost always function the same. Art galleries have plaques. Books have footnotes. Food packaging has nutritional info. If your design doesn't have a footer, then it's probably a mistake.
csydas 10y ago
For points 1, 2, and 4, I do agree that solutions exist, but I found myself agreeing with the author that they're an issue simply because I run across enough sites that continue to have these problems despite many good sites demonstrating how the pages should operate. I think the article's point would stick a little better though if the author focused more on the implementation than on the ∞scroll itself, since it's inconsistency across user experiences that causes frustration with ∞scroll, not so much ∞scroll itself. The only reliable constant across implementations of ∞scroll is that you'll be able to continually scroll; how it interacts with static content on the page, how it interacts with the back-button, and so on depends completely on how well it's implemented. It is very frustrating to come across sites where you follow a link far down in the page and hit back, only to be taken to the very top of the list and having to scroll and reload everything again. It's not even so much a performance issue; my old iPhone4s handles most ∞scroll just fine, but it's still just frustrating to go through pages and pages of scrolling because hitting Back didn't return me to where I was. This is particularly bad on mobile where fat-fingering links is pretty easy/common. Edit: not sure why you're getting down voted - I think your comments are fine and worth discussion; I also think they're wrong, but that's the point of discussion...
regularfry 10y ago
>> 6 Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook and Discourse ignored that. They didn't prove it wasn't significant to their users, they just don't care.
anonymoushn 10y ago
> Not really, if you've developed this the right way - which is render only items that are currently visible and derender the ones that are above the current scroll canvas. This way the browser's "find" feature doesn't work at all. Are you going to implement your own "find" feature too?

coldtea 10y ago

I don't find any of the rebuttals convincing. >1) Yep, so just put it in the fixed sidebar. Who said the site has a fixed sidebar? Why create a design that necessitates one? >Not really, if you've developed this the right way - which is render only items that are currently visible and derender the ones that are above the current scroll canvas. So change the list constantly under the user, and thus the scrollbar and relevant position. Plus, the extra coding complexity, and what for? >5) As other people here suggested, this depends on the content. If you work in e-commerce there is quite a habit people to scroll infinitely with a huge amount of products Even in commerce, choice paralysis is a thing, regardless of if people tend to "scroll infinitely" if they are shown a huge amount of products. That they scroll doesn't mean they don't feel the choice paralysis. >6. The scrollbar becomes unusable and untrustworthy FB wants to be immersive and keep you lost deep inside to show you ads, not to do what's best for usability.

awesomerobot 10y ago
This argument could go on forever, but why create a design that necessitates a footer to begin with? I mostly agree with the article, but it's crazy to say any one design solution is universally good/bad. There are good and bad ways to implement just about anything.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >This argument could go on forever, but why create a design that necessitates a footer to begin with? Because a footer, like a header, are staples of web design since day one, and work well as anchors that the user knows and expects to find at the top and bottom of the page. They also leave all other (layout) options open. Whereas a sidebar for example, while good in some situations, it prevents e.g. to have full side-to-side images and other such content, or distracts from the main text when reading long form, etc.
- Retra 10y ago
  Design is primarily about presenting information according to its relevance. A footer is a way of presenting unlikely-to-be-relevant-but-still-necessary information. It is a tool that accomplishes something that is necessary for just about every webpage. "Footers" (or related things like captions) exist in just about every design, and they almost always function the same. Art galleries have plaques. Books have footnotes. Food packaging has nutritional info. If your design doesn't have a footer, then it's probably a mistake.

csydas 10y ago

For points 1, 2, and 4, I do agree that solutions exist, but I found myself agreeing with the author that they're an issue simply because I run across enough sites that continue to have these problems despite many good sites demonstrating how the pages should operate. I think the article's point would stick a little better though if the author focused more on the implementation than on the ∞scroll itself, since it's inconsistency across user experiences that causes frustration with ∞scroll, not so much ∞scroll itself. The only reliable constant across implementations of ∞scroll is that you'll be able to continually scroll; how it interacts with static content on the page, how it interacts with the back-button, and so on depends completely on how well it's implemented. It is very frustrating to come across sites where you follow a link far down in the page and hit back, only to be taken to the very top of the list and having to scroll and reload everything again. It's not even so much a performance issue; my old iPhone4s handles most ∞scroll just fine, but it's still just frustrating to go through pages and pages of scrolling because hitting Back didn't return me to where I was. This is particularly bad on mobile where fat-fingering links is pretty easy/common. Edit: not sure why you're getting down voted - I think your comments are fine and worth discussion; I also think they're wrong, but that's the point of discussion...

regularfry 10y ago

>> 6 Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook and Discourse ignored that. They didn't prove it wasn't significant to their users, they just don't care.

anonymoushn 10y ago

> Not really, if you've developed this the right way - which is render only items that are currently visible and derender the ones that are above the current scroll canvas. This way the browser's "find" feature doesn't work at all. Are you going to implement your own "find" feature too?