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Pinterest? Spreadsheets? Business apps? Not applicable everywhere, but for certain applications (near-) infinite scrolling is extremely popular with the target

by solve 11y ago

Pinterest? Spreadsheets? Business apps? Not applicable everywhere, but for certain applications (near-) infinite scrolling is extremely popular with the target users.

danbruc 11y ago
I don't know Pinterest but it looks like it is made for random browsing through content like scrolling through social network content. There it makes indeed sense because by the very nature of the activity you are not trying to solve a specific task. But event there I doubt that people go through thousands and thousands of items. Spreadsheets? At least I hate scrolling through them. I would rather prefer seeing the thing I am interested in at the very top instead of manually searching for it. That is of course a tough problem, designing a good spreadsheet as well as offering good tools to do this or ease navigating. The same for business application. No one likes scrolling through endless lists to find the relevant things but business applications almost universally suck at it is often your only option.
- solve 11y ago
  > I would rather prefer seeing the thing I am interested in at the very top You've hit on the exact point. If you've ever watched a heavy pinterest user browse pinterest or other pinterest-styled shopping sites -- they look at EVERYTHING. Just infinitely scrolling for hours after hours, skimming every single item until they hit the end of a collection. Occasionally opening items in a new background tab. Probably that's where this UI works best, for apps where the person is going to look at many thousands of items, and no ranking exists that can do a decent job, for the particular user's needs other than at a rough level. Women's fashion shopping (e.g. pinterest and shopping clones of pinterest) seem to be an ideal example of that. By the way, fashion is an interesting example of being anti-ranking. If something gets too popular, it suddenly becomes unfasionable again by the rules of fashion.

by solve 11y ago

Pinterest? Spreadsheets? Business apps? Not applicable everywhere, but for certain applications (near-) infinite scrolling is extremely popular with the target users.

danbruc 11y ago

I don't know Pinterest but it looks like it is made for random browsing through content like scrolling through social network content. There it makes indeed sense because by the very nature of the activity you are not trying to solve a specific task. But event there I doubt that people go through thousands and thousands of items. Spreadsheets? At least I hate scrolling through them. I would rather prefer seeing the thing I am interested in at the very top instead of manually searching for it. That is of course a tough problem, designing a good spreadsheet as well as offering good tools to do this or ease navigating. The same for business application. No one likes scrolling through endless lists to find the relevant things but business applications almost universally suck at it is often your only option.

solve 11y ago
> I would rather prefer seeing the thing I am interested in at the very top You've hit on the exact point. If you've ever watched a heavy pinterest user browse pinterest or other pinterest-styled shopping sites -- they look at EVERYTHING. Just infinitely scrolling for hours after hours, skimming every single item until they hit the end of a collection. Occasionally opening items in a new background tab. Probably that's where this UI works best, for apps where the person is going to look at many thousands of items, and no ranking exists that can do a decent job, for the particular user's needs other than at a rough level. Women's fashion shopping (e.g. pinterest and shopping clones of pinterest) seem to be an ideal example of that. By the way, fashion is an interesting example of being anti-ranking. If something gets too popular, it suddenly becomes unfasionable again by the rules of fashion.