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Fundamentally, scrolling indicates that you haven’t done a good job of surfacing the information that the user really needs in the first place. I see any form o

by ttul 8y ago

Fundamentally, scrolling indicates that you haven’t done a good job of surfacing the information that the user really needs in the first place. I see any form of scrolling as an admission of defeat on the part of the site designer. Have terabytes of log results? Why would scrolling somehow fix that? Figure out how to fetch the stuff that matters, and put that in front of the user so they don’t have to scroll. Scrolling should be all but unnecessary in a well designed interface.

always_good 8y ago
I don't understand. What about when you're just consuming a list of things like an image gallery or HN/Reddit frontpage? Your complaint doesn't seem to make sense in this common context. In fact, I can't think of many contexts where your complaint does apply. Let's say Reddit knows precisely the 100,000 things I do want to see. Endless scroll doesn't change that, but it makes sense to lazy load them that way.
- ttul 8y ago
  There are legitimate times when scrolling is needed. But in my experience, in many circumstances, what is needed is more thought about surfacing what’s relevant. Google gives you the best of both worlds. It’s normally not necessary to scroll, but if you absolutely must, the capability is there.
- danso 8y ago
  Infinite scroll seems to be ideal with casual consumption and serendipitous discovery, which is probably why its the status quo for sites like Reddit, Tumblr, Facebook, and even Google Images. But it seems to be detrimental for sites in which a user is looking for something specific, such as an answer to a search query or a product to buy -- i.e. they know what they want when they see it -- which would explain why sites like Google or Amazon haven't implemented it (though Amazon does have it for its mobile client it seems). Years ago Etsy implemented infinite scroll in its search results, but killed it after finding "that people seeing infinite scroll purchased less from search". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5017995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5017995

by ttul 8y ago

always_good 8y ago

I don't understand. What about when you're just consuming a list of things like an image gallery or HN/Reddit frontpage? Your complaint doesn't seem to make sense in this common context. In fact, I can't think of many contexts where your complaint does apply. Let's say Reddit knows precisely the 100,000 things I do want to see. Endless scroll doesn't change that, but it makes sense to lazy load them that way.

ttul 8y ago
There are legitimate times when scrolling is needed. But in my experience, in many circumstances, what is needed is more thought about surfacing what’s relevant. Google gives you the best of both worlds. It’s normally not necessary to scroll, but if you absolutely must, the capability is there.
danso 8y ago
Infinite scroll seems to be ideal with casual consumption and serendipitous discovery, which is probably why its the status quo for sites like Reddit, Tumblr, Facebook, and even Google Images. But it seems to be detrimental for sites in which a user is looking for something specific, such as an answer to a search query or a product to buy -- i.e. they know what they want when they see it -- which would explain why sites like Google or Amazon haven't implemented it (though Amazon does have it for its mobile client it seems). Years ago Etsy implemented infinite scroll in its search results, but killed it after finding "that people seeing infinite scroll purchased less from search". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5017995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5017995