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Google Tests an Interface Optimized for Infinite Scrolling
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- nodata 15y agoI hate infinite scrolling. With pagination at least you get a feeling of having completed something, of having got somewhere. With infinite scrolling you are stuck, scrolling forever. The nice thing about Google Images infinite scrolling is that they combine it with pagination.
- miloco 15y agoI think the title is misleading. If I'm not mistaken it's not actual infinite scrolling, the only change is the search bar and search tools remain in a fixed position. It's a nice change.
- addandsubtract 15y ago>The new interface seems to set the stage for a fluid design that removes pagination and replaces it with infinite scrolling. The key phrase in the article is "setting the stage". Google hasn't switched to infinite scroll yet, but with a fixed header it seems most likely for them to do so soon.
- silversmith 15y agoI haven't seen it in action, but from what I saw in the video, it was actual infinite scrolling - the pagination controls got replaced with 'second page' content after scrolling down. My guess is that the pagination controls are there to accomodate people with JavaScript disabled.
- repsilat 15y agoMy favourite way to combine pagination with infinite scrolling (for reading, at least) is to use columns - the line after the bottom of the first column is at the top of the second column, and scrolling down scrolls all columns along line by line. Scrolling left and right snaps to columns, and scrolling right by one column is equivalent to scrolling down by one page. Scrolling right by one page is equivalent to scrolling down by page_height (in lines) times page_width (in columns).
- asolove 15y agoCan you give an example? I have disliked all the column-based screen reading formats I've ever seen.
- acqq 15y ago"The navigation bar, the search box and the search options sidebar have a fixed position" I see this as "the revenge of designers" -- having anything permanently taking up the vertical space was pushed from "designers" for years and it always reduced usability for me. I'd prefer to see the results, not immense fixed space that doesn't contain anything. The picture is telling -- the permanent menu bar and the huge empty space around the search box and logo.
- d_r 15y agoPerhaps they can try another pattern (now seen on TechCrunch.com). Initially, the logo/header is sized normally. As you scroll down to the point where the header would disappear, it shrinks to a smaller height. Seems weird at first, but makes a whole lot of sense.
- p9idf 15y agoI despise frames. And let's call these fixed elements what they really are: frames. In addition to reducing the usable screen area (which is awful on my netbook's 1024x600 screen)[1], frames also break the page metaphor. Part of what makes the web easy to use is that interacting with each website works more or less the same. That is to say, the scrolling behaviour of web pages mimics a real-life piece of paper. If the entire website no longer scrolls as one uniform page, when visiting a new site, the scrolling behaviour is unpredictable with each site doing something different. My terminology is clumsy, but perhaps it is clear enough to understand what I mean. [1] http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/1748/screenwaste.png http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/1748/screenwaste.png
- mojuba 15y agoPlease, please, never use recursive examples. They are confusing, distracting, make any presentation look poor, plus they show the author's lack of imagination. In this particular case I didn't quite get why Google appears on the right in the video until I saw that the guy was demonstrating Google Search by searching "google search".
- KnightWhoSaysNi 15y ago"The most important change is that most navigation elements continue to be visible even when you scroll down. The navigation bar, the search box and the search options sidebar have a fixed position" Strange that "position: fixed" hasn't found its way to popular websites before now. It's been supported by major browsers since the early zeroes (or late nineties?), the only exception being IE (for which you can easily make a fix). Here's a page from ten years ago (!) describing "position: fixed": http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/menus http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/menus
- acqq 15y agohttp://derstandard.at/ http://derstandard.at/ has fixed pieces of the interface for at least a few years but I really, really don't like it. Try it yourself. It looks good as long as you're actually not interested in the material inside. Unless you're designer of the site showing the features of the site to the boss, you're not likely to use the menus inside of the fixed areas. But this also explains why some sites end up having such interfaces. In my view, this is a sign of Google turning soggy inside as in: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2776046 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2776046
- KnightWhoSaysNi 15y agoLike all features, "position: fixed" can be applied in useful ways and in not so useful ways. I agree that Der Standard's way of using it isn't too good, but overall fixed positions are an excellent feature if you ask me.
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- bmj 15y agoThe "Preview" GMail theme has a variation of this, keeping the toolbar in a fixed position as you scroll. It's not infinite, though, as each inbox "page" contains 50 messages.
- Lost_BiomedE 15y agoIt is very distracting to me. It usually is jerky causing me to look at it each time I scroll. It also takes a second for me to realize where I jumped to if I used page down, because I can not tell as easily where I am relative to where I was, visually. This is partly due to loss of relative distances but also because my eyes have momentarily followed the jerk. The only fixed that I can handle is a fixed background if there is a large difference in contrast between the page background and main content background. I hope this does not become a norm.