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Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

willfennel.com

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Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#101

Post by mgdlbp »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #97
chii wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you infinite scroll, you'd also need some sort of url update so that you can always copy the url, and get back to this scroll position. i hate sites that have infinite scroll, but never allow you to "save" a position in the scroll to come back to in the future.

That's my point: most search results are ephemeral, and Google/DuckDuckGo results certainly are.

But the more ephemeral the content, the more one might want to save the page in a web archive, which (unfortunately) can't scroll down.

Granted, there isn't really any use in archiving ephemera like search results and frontpages other than notarizing odd patterns to show your friends or blog about, so the problem really lies in the interaction of web archival with infinite scrolling in general: comments sections, for example, can only be conveniently archived in their entirety without scraping if they're paginated and nothing is unloaded by default.

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#102

Post by frosted-flakes »

mgdlbp wrote: post #101
frosted-flakes wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my point: most search results are ephemeral, and Google/DuckDuckGo results certainly are.

But the more ephemeral the content, the more one might want to save the page in a web archive, which (unfortunately) can't scroll down. Granted, there isn't really any use in archiving ephemera like search results and frontpages other than notarizing odd patterns to show your friends or blog about, so the problem really lies in the interaction of web archival with infinite scrolling in general: comments sections, for…

Yeah, and YouTube's comment section drives me insane, because it's one giant unthreaded infinitely scrolling list. There's no way to navigate, and if you scroll back up to the video to check something, you've just lost your place and have no hope of ever finding it again.

But DDG search results? I scroll until I find what I need, then I close the tab (it's rare to get past page 2, and yes DDG does actually group the results into numbered pages, with each page loading as it's scrolled into view).

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#103

Post by abdouls »

I cannot seem to reach the link in the OP, however, I would say that infinite scrolling needs to have a solid UI/UX around.

One of the main reason for inifinite scrolling is to have more and more content shown and try to attract the users and let them stay around (social networks for example).

However, there are cases where it's not implemented correctly and clicking next becomes very awful...

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#104

Post by chii »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #102
mgdlbp wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the more ephemeral the content, the more one might want to save the page in a web archive, which (unfortunately) can't scroll down. Granted, there isn't really any use in archiving ephemera like search results and frontpages other than notarizing odd patterns to show your friends or blog about, so the problem really lies in the interaction of web archival with infinite scrolling in general: comments sections, for…

Yeah, and YouTube's comment section drives me insane, because it's one giant unthreaded infinitely scrolling list. There's no way to navigate, and if you scroll back up to the video to check something, you've just lost your place and have no hope of ever finding it again. But DDG search results? I scroll until I find what I need, then I close the tab (it's rare to get past page 2, and yes DDG does actually group the…

YouTube comments do have permalink - you need browser view to copy it tho iirc.

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#105

Post by wtallis »

duxup wrote: post #95
applejacks wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I think there’s a big difference between unintuitive and the footer thing.

A lot of UIs designed by developers without going through a real design phase end up only making sense if you already have a mental model that more or less matches how the software works under the hood—the easiest UI to implement is usually one that doesn't provide any abstraction over the inner workings. So you end up with a steep learning curve, but software that is usable once you understand it. That's entirely different from a software feature whose design makes it literally impossible to use.

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#106

Post by wruza »

productceo wrote: post #92
lucasyvas wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hilarious to me that the Design/UX team is always the one making mistakes like this where I've worked. We're just sitting there saying, even from a non-code point of view, this shit makes zero sense. Ignored as usual.

A professional medical doctor will make more medical mistakes than I will. Let us try our best to treat them charitably, forgive the mistakes we see, and provide input to help them do their work even better! I had success working with Design/UX or any other specialists acknowledging that they spent more time thinking about it than I have, and that, of course, they will be the final decision makers on whether to accep…

A professional medical doctor will make much less medical mistakes than you will in a medical field.

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#107

Post by wruza »

lobo_tuerto wrote: post #5

Don't remember a specific instance, but I've seen this used in a couple of sites. Kind of mind numbing. Try to read the text or click on a link in the footer, and if you're lucky the request will be slow enough.

A desktop recipe is to press End and hit Esc immediately. On mobile: set flight mode, open in new tab, unset flight mode, refresh.

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#108

Post by rk06 »

duxup wrote: post #59
productceo wrote: post #50

I once shipped a new product, and was surprised to receive no negative feedback from users regarding content quality. Happens out, UX team placed the "Send Feedback" button below the infinite scroll content feed.

Metric met! I recall a new marketing executive who touted that they had improved the youtube ads so much that NOBODY had skipped a single improved youtube ad! They made the ads all so short that you couldn't skip them.

Isn't it a good thing? Like if the ads are 5-6 seconds. Then they are certainly in right direction.

If they were trying "skiping not allowed in 60+ sec long ads", then it would be bad

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#109

Post by dqv »

duxup wrote: post #58

Who makes these decisions really? HN tends to be more developer focused but I suspect most of these horrendous type decisions aren't made by random dev, and random dev isn't in a position to stop it. Many years ago I once worked at a place where a CRM app had "special instructions" and at one point management was so upset about people not following them 100% of the time they were considering "make them blink" so the…

> Who makes these decisions really?

In my experience it has almost always been devs who don’t really use what they’re developing. “Alert sounds don’t stop if alert panel is open when new alert comes in” is only something a heavy user will notice. A dev might trigger an alert, but never think of weird edge cases like this.

There are applications I use where if the dev actually had to use what they made regularly, they would start implementing changes that get rid of the tedium. That’s also why in that CRM case I would really be pushing to have the opportunity to work as an actual user a few hours a week to really get a sense of how it works and what they really needed from those special instructions.

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#110

Post by weird-eye-issue »

rk06 wrote: post #108
duxup wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Metric met! I recall a new marketing executive who touted that they had improved the youtube ads so much that NOBODY had skipped a single improved youtube ad! They made the ads all so short that you couldn't skip them.

Isn't it a good thing? Like if the ads are 5-6 seconds. Then they are certainly in right direction. If they were trying "skiping not allowed in 60+ sec long ads", then it would be bad

In the right direction for... What?

Maybe for your attention span or what YOU like but maybe not for what they are actually buying ads for... Money

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