7 ms·

Infinite scroll is probably the absolute worst ux feature ever conceived. Love to see it get ripped out of everything.

lostlogin 2y ago
It would be ok if the scroll bar and slow loading could be solved. However I don’t think they can be. Rest in hell.
vishnugupta 2y ago
This infuriates me to no end. I like a news article, share or save the URL and when it’s opened it is something totally different.
lelandfe 2y ago
I dunno, it’s pretty apt for Instagram, Twitter, etc. It is admittedly awful in many other situations, though.
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  Or Google Sheets, which is even more complex. It gets particularly tricky when you got tons of data to be rendered but can't keep DOM in memory - you need to scroll virtually.
  - average_r_user 2y ago
    this happens to me with big sheets it's annoying
- Gualdrapo 2y ago
  If by "pretty apt" you meant "really effective into keeping their users scrolling mindlessly and contributing to the 'doomscrolling' effect", yep. Seems to be pretty great for them. The funny thing is that for us who don't use Instagram or Twitter they won't let us scroll past a screen height without asking to be logged in...
  - lelandfe 2y ago
    I don't think Twitter even lets you scroll at all, these days. Anyway, "HN yells at cloud" was a fairly predictable low value comment. No, that's not what I mean. I mean "pretty apt" insofar as pagination would add no value. The order and count are changing so rapidly that infinite scroll is the obvious choice.
    - mdorazio 2y ago
      The order should not be changing - that’s another user-hostile invention designed to encourage doomscrolling. Increasing count is a non-issue because once you reach a content piece you saw previously you know where you are (same as any bulletin board).
      - lelandfe 2y ago
        People use these apps because of their personalized feeds. Saying the apps shouldn't have that, or calling it anti-user, seems pretty misaligned to what the users actually do on them. The apps are not bulletin boards. Anyway, again - infinite scrolling is apt for their use cases. We can say that and also all frown at the concept of doomscrolling afterwards.
  - squigz 2y ago
    If users want to scroll endlessly, they should be able to, and they're going to, regardless of what scrolling implementation a platform uses - I scroll through many pages of HN just fine without infinite scroll.
    - antisthenes 2y ago
      If infinite scroll was an alternative to regular pagination on every site, you'd have a point. But oftentimes it's the only option available, and it's garbage for everything except mindless scrolling.
    - nunez 2y ago
      That's true, but pagination without read ahead goes a long way to drop engagement, especially for users with slower Internet connections.
- lofaszvanitt 2y ago
  No, it's just plain shit. When you have to interrupt your work you have to start all over again and you have zero indication where were you. Idiots come up with things and more idiots copy them and laud it as some kind of secret sauce. While it's just plain idiocy.
- nottorp 2y ago
  It's not. Unless you don't care about not being able to find where you were if you mistakenly scroll.
mrspuratic 2y ago
The Google search page faux-infinite scroll is not just clumsy, it also breaks "back" navigation if you click through, then back, after loading more results. (edit: to clarify, I have the continuous scroll setting off, so it's "incremental infinite scroll" where More Results loads more results inline)
tjpnz 2y ago
Remember how they used to have links at the bottom of pages? If you scroll fast enough many implementations still retain them. That was one bandwagon people were quick to thoughtlessly jump on and even YouTube was half-assing it last I checked.
rawmaterial 2y ago
Only if there are clickable links in the footer/colophon. For search results, tumblelogs etc it's fine (ideally you can create #links for sharing).
ralusek 2y ago
I love infinite scroll, and hate pagination. All lists should be some combination of these: infinite scroll, filterable, sortable. Pagination should never be involved. If I want to get to something on page 2, I scroll. For anything else, I’m going to sort and filter. If the thing I want is on page 17, and I see 1, 2, 3…79…159, 160, 161, I’m still just going to want to filter. The absolute best pagination is set up in a way that lets you binary search drill down for what you’re looking for, but even that is something I’d almost never prefer over filtering
- chrash 2y ago
  hard disagree. i had an experience just this morning looking for some pictures from an event i participated in, and the infinite scrolling was absolutely infuriating. they didn't have an index to filter on, and when i clicked on a picture to download it and navigated back, it took me to the top of the page. i had to scroll through about a dozen loading indicators to get back to where i was. sure, this was a bad implementation, but adding it to every single list of results on the web is asinine trend chasing and bad UX.
hypercube33 2y ago
The alternative are pages which means more ads can be displayed typically on non search engines

It would be ok if the scroll bar and slow loading could be solved. However I don’t think they can be. Rest in hell.

This infuriates me to no end. I like a news article, share or save the URL and when it’s opened it is something totally different.

lelandfe 2y ago

I dunno, it’s pretty apt for Instagram, Twitter, etc. It is admittedly awful in many other situations, though.

dzhiurgis 2y ago
Or Google Sheets, which is even more complex. It gets particularly tricky when you got tons of data to be rendered but can't keep DOM in memory - you need to scroll virtually.
- average_r_user 2y ago
  this happens to me with big sheets it's annoying
Gualdrapo 2y ago
If by "pretty apt" you meant "really effective into keeping their users scrolling mindlessly and contributing to the 'doomscrolling' effect", yep. Seems to be pretty great for them. The funny thing is that for us who don't use Instagram or Twitter they won't let us scroll past a screen height without asking to be logged in...
- lelandfe 2y ago
  I don't think Twitter even lets you scroll at all, these days. Anyway, "HN yells at cloud" was a fairly predictable low value comment. No, that's not what I mean. I mean "pretty apt" insofar as pagination would add no value. The order and count are changing so rapidly that infinite scroll is the obvious choice.
  - mdorazio 2y ago
    The order should not be changing - that’s another user-hostile invention designed to encourage doomscrolling. Increasing count is a non-issue because once you reach a content piece you saw previously you know where you are (same as any bulletin board).
    - lelandfe 2y ago
      People use these apps because of their personalized feeds. Saying the apps shouldn't have that, or calling it anti-user, seems pretty misaligned to what the users actually do on them. The apps are not bulletin boards. Anyway, again - infinite scrolling is apt for their use cases. We can say that and also all frown at the concept of doomscrolling afterwards.
- squigz 2y ago
  If users want to scroll endlessly, they should be able to, and they're going to, regardless of what scrolling implementation a platform uses - I scroll through many pages of HN just fine without infinite scroll.
  - antisthenes 2y ago
    If infinite scroll was an alternative to regular pagination on every site, you'd have a point. But oftentimes it's the only option available, and it's garbage for everything except mindless scrolling.
  - nunez 2y ago
    That's true, but pagination without read ahead goes a long way to drop engagement, especially for users with slower Internet connections.
lofaszvanitt 2y ago
No, it's just plain shit. When you have to interrupt your work you have to start all over again and you have zero indication where were you. Idiots come up with things and more idiots copy them and laud it as some kind of secret sauce. While it's just plain idiocy.
nottorp 2y ago
It's not. Unless you don't care about not being able to find where you were if you mistakenly scroll.

mrspuratic 2y ago

The Google search page faux-infinite scroll is not just clumsy, it also breaks "back" navigation if you click through, then back, after loading more results. (edit: to clarify, I have the continuous scroll setting off, so it's "incremental infinite scroll" where More Results loads more results inline)

tjpnz 2y ago

Remember how they used to have links at the bottom of pages? If you scroll fast enough many implementations still retain them. That was one bandwagon people were quick to thoughtlessly jump on and even YouTube was half-assing it last I checked.

rawmaterial 2y ago

Only if there are clickable links in the footer/colophon. For search results, tumblelogs etc it's fine (ideally you can create #links for sharing).

ralusek 2y ago

I love infinite scroll, and hate pagination. All lists should be some combination of these: infinite scroll, filterable, sortable. Pagination should never be involved. If I want to get to something on page 2, I scroll. For anything else, I’m going to sort and filter. If the thing I want is on page 17, and I see 1, 2, 3…79…159, 160, 161, I’m still just going to want to filter. The absolute best pagination is set up in a way that lets you binary search drill down for what you’re looking for, but even that is something I’d almost never prefer over filtering

chrash 2y ago
hard disagree. i had an experience just this morning looking for some pictures from an event i participated in, and the infinite scrolling was absolutely infuriating. they didn't have an index to filter on, and when i clicked on a picture to download it and navigated back, it took me to the top of the page. i had to scroll through about a dozen loading indicators to get back to where i was. sure, this was a bad implementation, but adding it to every single list of results on the web is asinine trend chasing and bad UX.

hypercube33 2y ago

The alternative are pages which means more ads can be displayed typically on non search engines