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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

#121

Post by kgeist »

jehlakj wrote: post #65

Something tells me we're seeing more of this partly because of graphql and its first class spec to infinite scrolling. So no - I don't think the decision came from none other than the programmer who do this. And to be quite honest, UX designers I've worked with don't really dictate this kind of stuff. Heck, some don't even know how the scrolling works in their own designs when asked about it!

Heh, in a feature we're about to release, infinite scrolling was indeed dictated by the programmers, as it makes the API cleaner and somewhat more scalable ("incremental loading of data with an opaque next page token" as opposed to "go to page 80 and I don't care if it takes forever/complex archirecturally to make it fast/consistent"). We could have added a "load more" button but it looks somewhat terrible on mobile.

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#122

Post by Beltalowda »

som wrote: post #72
som wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure. Most of the web devs I have worked with over the years haven't been overly thoughtful regards UX. I'd even go as far to say that it's the least considered aspect of their process. "Not my job" mentality. Tho probably says more about the nature of my experience than anything else.

To add to this, I absolutely believe it is the developer's role to interrogate a design (and its implementation) and feedback where appropriate.

I've done this, but it can be hard. Some designers can be very protective of their design, and you have to fight entire battles for something like "this white header text on a light-grey background image is almost unreadable, so I tweaked the colour a bit and added a text shadow" and other really basic no-brainers like that.

I don't even have very strong opinions about design; anything is fine with me. The only part I really do have a strong opinion on is "it should be readable", and enforcing only that has been very tiresome at times.

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#123

Post by Tagbert »

indymike wrote: post #66
ravenstine wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's okay. The menu items in the header will drop down on hover, making it very easy to use when the user is scrolling the page. :)

The good news: No such thing as hover on mobile.

Equivalent is a small back-scroll. Not a bad way to bring in control structures to a scrolling content array.

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#124

Post by Tagbert »

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.

And then you click on a result item, reject it, hit “back” and you are not where you were in the result set. You have to scroll back to some unknowable position within infinity. Very discouraging as a user.

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#125

Post by frosted-flakes »

Tagbert wrote: post #124
frosted-flakes wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And then you click on a result item, reject it, hit “back” and you are not where you were in the result set. You have to scroll back to some unknowable position within infinity. Very discouraging as a user.

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Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#126

Post by somishere »

Beltalowda wrote: post #122
som wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this, I absolutely believe it is the developer's role to interrogate a design (and its implementation) and feedback where appropriate.

I've done this, but it can be hard. Some designers can be very protective of their design, and you have to fight entire battles for something like "this white header text on a light-grey background image is almost unreadable, so I tweaked the colour a bit and added a text shadow" and other really basic no-brainers like that. I don't even have very strong opinions about design; anything is fine with me. The only part…

I totally agree it's not always easy. But again I think with something like this it's about savvy communication rather than enforcement. How do you articulate a challenge to a designer that respects their role in the process? Contrast is easy, there's defined standards you can defer to. But for sure, it gets tricky where it's just a difference of opinion or priorities.

Regardless, just going ahead and changing the design is probably the nuclear option. It's only going to start a war. Put the shoe on the other foot: consider same designer dropping a 2008 era jQuery snippet into your carefully constructed page to resolve an issue in the build. Not fun for anyone.

Edit: I should add, I'm basing all of this on personal experience. Appreciate some situations just suck and you have to get on with it.

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#127

Post by evnp »

tasuki wrote: post #116
evnp wrote: post #85

Should read "Don't place footers below infinite scroll." I appreciate the brevity but this fails to notice the nuance, and ends up being too reductive to be useful advice. Footers can work just fine combined with infinite scroll, eg. https://radiopaper.com/explore on desktop (disclosure, I am one of the authors). That said, paying attention to how UX/features interact is something we should always strive to do more o…

That took me a while to find out. Also, I had to read the entire about page to understand Radiopaper, but I like this idea a lot!

Thanks for the feedback - we have actually discussed how the current footer UX isn't the most discoverable (not due to infinite scroll though :)

We're looking for ways to communicate the concepts better - please feel free to message me at https://radiopaper.com/Evan if you have any ideas!

Re: Do not combine footers and infinite scrolling

#129

Post by stjohnswarts »

Tagbert wrote: post #124
frosted-flakes wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And then you click on a result item, reject it, hit “back” and you are not where you were in the result set. You have to scroll back to some unknowable position within infinity. Very discouraging as a user.

duckduckgo lets you turn them off. Not sure about google as I have de-googled.
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