In web design, infinite scrolling allows you to to literally keep scrolling a page, and more content appears. Most common website use for this would be a blog, magazine, or portfolio. The goal is to keep the visitors on the site by delivering more content. This web design technique eliminates the need for pagination.
That is an upside about the feature. The downside, usually is with the execution. A couple of the more common issues with not implementing infinite scrolling are:
- Site is not optimized for load speed, so infinite scroll literally kills user experience by making it painfully slow to access new content as the site visitor scrolls the page.
- Site has a footer that, while built with good intentions, with an infinite scroll ability, the user will be chasing it, or never reach the footer information, unless they have scrolling speed capabilities the likes of Superman.
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Both issues are bad, but the second, I like to think that the website owner is some sadist who secretly knows how many people they frustrated, because they tried to chase after the footer of the website.
Infinite scrolling is not for everyone. For some, it could be information overload, and others, it could backfire, if you are looking to attract buyers and subscribers. In fact, a study from the Nielson Norman Group concludes that infinite scrolling may not be the best solution for most websites, and gives a solid case on some of the user experience issues related to infinite scrolling.
However, information overload issue aside, if you’re a website owner using infinite scrolling on your blog or magazine, or portfolio, or even store, you shouldn’t have a footer area, like social icons, terms of service, and more. That content should go elsewhere, or on a page that doesn’t involve scrolling for ages to try to get to it.
What are your thoughts about infinite scrolling?
Bob Kruse says
January 8, 2018 at 5:32 pmI’ve found that like 99% of the time, infinite scrolling is just annoying. I wish people would stop using it unless their site falls into the very specific category of sites that are designed for it, like Pinterest.
Heyan says
January 19, 2018 at 12:55 pmYes, really, the Infinite scrolling is really killing the user experience. I have my blog and it has built-in infinite scrolling feature but after enabling that my website loading time gets increased, also there are a couple of information are on the footer such as contact details, links and especially the advertisement. When the infinite scrolling is enabled the user never able to find all this.
Also, I have one question to the writer of this article.
I am using the caching tool WPfastest cache on my website but when I test the speed of my website on Google page test it shows the above fold scripts need to be removed and the script is from the caching tool… Can you suggest some solution.
Danny says
February 25, 2018 at 8:44 pmThe tricky thing about infinite scrolling is that is isn’t the right choice for every business. Whether or not you should make the move depends on your goals and what type of information you give to your website visitors.
ashok saraswat says
April 25, 2018 at 5:48 amI really liked your blog, and your blog has really given a new dimension on the subject. I really wonder how you thought so differently and so correct that it is appealing a lot of readers like me.
Donna Merrill says
May 15, 2018 at 1:40 amHey Nile,
It great to be reading your post again. I agree with your points & I never really liked the infinite scrolling, I just hate it personally, although for news websites it has been good, if executed the right way.
By the way, Thanks for the great read Nile.
~ Donna
Kanpur Univ says
June 27, 2018 at 10:37 pmIn my point of view, Infinite scrolling only useful on viral content, meme websites like 9gag. On a business, news, personal blogs and agency websites infinity scroll is really a pain.
After reading your article, I switched back from infinite scroll to normal UI because of speed and optimization issues. Thanks for the tips
vijay says
July 2, 2018 at 5:45 amhow many people did they frustrate because they tried to chase after the footer of the website?
Emmanuel Nonye says
July 14, 2018 at 4:50 pmI never liked infinite scrolling but many websites here in Nigeria prefer using it. I hope they see the dangers attached. I’ll do my best to share this article.
Robert Williams says
August 9, 2018 at 2:09 amReally a nice blog. Thanks for sharing this.
Gamer says
December 2, 2018 at 11:43 pmHii Neil,
Truely i never liked infinity scrolling , because it is annoying and time waste ,it is mostly used in news websites