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Google’s suggestion for a better infinite scroll?

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Re: Google’s suggestion for a better infinite scroll?

#151

Post by kackontent »

keehun wrote: post #91
smoyer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the message tree was stored in its entirety assuming it wasn't too big. But each of these messages was significantly smaller than the memory footprint of the DOM element in which they would have been displayed. The efficiency of putting new content into a DOM element at the bottom of the list (below the visible content) and reordering it within the parent (so it was at the top was significantly faster than de…

I mean, this is just like how Apple implements its NSTableView. You have a datasource and you implement the table's data source delegates. NSTableView itself takes care of the whole reusing views thing.

It's basically a common pattern when it comes to UI for the lists, I remember MFC had it like a hundred years ago and I bet they weren't the 1st to do it this way.

Re: Google’s suggestion for a better infinite scroll?

#152

Post by brownbat »

davb wrote: post #38

I'm surprised at how many people here seem to like infinite scroll. I personally can't stand it. Imagine having a book where no matter how much you read, it never seems to end. No milestones, no sense of progress. Just page after page after page. It just feels... icky.

I have a ton of respect for Aza Raskin, who has pushed this, and I respect that infinite scrolling was a neat solution for some problems of the 2004 web. But I'm not sure those problems are the biggest problems today, and I mostly I feel like "fixing scrolling" is working on the wrong problem, when we could instead be working on "ditching scrolling."

The addendum to Fitt's Law is key here: The current location of the pointer is an infinite target.

Or, to paraphrase, dragging is usability hell.*

If I'm flipping through pages, I want to click or tap one thing, I don't want to have to manipulate things by clicking one spot, holding a button, finding another target and releasing.

I know clicking and dragging is intuitive and easy for all of us, but compared to one simple click at the current mouse location, it's a usability eternity.

My approach would be to display all search results from the first page of Google cleanly on one screen. Maybe two columns wide if necessary, or fit to the screen in a tumblr style way. Not infinite scrolling, not any scrolling. I can keep my mouse on top of a little set of forward and back arrow buttons in the corner and flip through results that way. Or I could just use arrow keys or taps on a mobile device.

* Sure, dragging is the only sensible approach in some cases, maps and canvases and 3D object manipulation, sure. But if it can be designed away.

So I could see click and drag if your search results were not linear, but a two dimensional graph. Maybe you get that graph by... going right or left puts more priority on different terms in the search box, or going up and down adds different commonly included words to your search, I don't know.

Re: Google’s suggestion for a better infinite scroll?

#153

Post by Lagged2Death »

ef4 wrote: post #54
usaphp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many people do hold and drag the scrollbar, I am so used to scrolling using a touchpad on Mac and mousewheel on PC, so I never even touch a scrollbar.

You'd be surprised. I've done many user tests and training sessions only to inwardly wince every time the user painstakingly does that. (And this on their own hardware, with their own mouse they use every day at work.) After you explain it, they say "wow, that's neat." And then promptly forget it and start dragging the scrollbar again.

I was until recently a devoted scroll-wheel-user. But I'm starting to see the first signs of arthritis in my fingers (far too early if you ask me) and scroll wheels are becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

I've been surprised to find that dragging an old-fashioned scroll bar is actually a faster and more accurate than the wheel if you're scrolling by more than a page or so.

Re: Google’s suggestion for a better infinite scroll?

#154

Post by barrkel »

_frog wrote: post #143
smoyer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's Wave used (and reused) a fixed number of DOM elements that were filled by fly-weights containing the data to be shown on that page. While the scroll bar showed the appropriate position in the thread, there was a limited amount of data for the items above and below the visible set, and an even more limited number of DOM elements that could be filled with data.

That's actually very interesting. The UIKit framework that powers most iOS apps uses a similar approach in its collection and table view classes, which is one of the reasons that scrolling managed to be so smooth even on the limited hardware of the original iPhone. Ember.js similarly has Ember.ListView[1] which was the first implementation of that idea I'd seen on the web. I had no idea that Google Wave had beaten th…

Native frameworks have historically drawn on demand, with a bit blit for the unchanged scrolled bit and as little drawing as possible into the newly exposed area - with or without double buffering, depending. And this on hardware far, far less powerful than the original iPhone.

Re: Google’s suggestion for a better infinite scroll?

#156

Post by pooshoot »

I can't believe all the negative comments on here. If you have enough tabs open that infinite scrolling starts to bog down your browser, you should probably find a girlfriend/boyfriend and get out of your mom's basement or replace your computer with one made after 2003. Infinite scrolling, especially as shown here, is fantastic because it doesn't require endless hitting of the back button to get to the original post. The only time I've had a problem with infinite scrolling is for facebook friend purging and even then, who cares!?! If you don't like sites that use infinite scrolling, don't use those sites. This hybrid pagination/infinite scroll option looked awesome to me.

Re: Google’s suggestion for a better infinite scroll?

#157

Post by myfonj »

bduerst wrote: post #69
jakub_g wrote: post #59

I would feel kind of okay with infinite scroll if it wasn't creating memory problems. Especially on image-heavy (tumblr) / DOM-heavy (facebook) pages. If I browsed the web in 90s mode (one window, one page opened) that would maybe work, but when I have dozens of tabs opened, youtube playing in background and I start browsing an endless memory-hungry page, my laptop (3 GB RAM) starts dying. Another issue is the one me…

I've thought about this before - where you have a 2D array of images with infinite scroll in all directions. You need to track the scroll position, and kill the elements that are scrolling away as you create the new elements in the direction you are scrolling - with the entire purpose of creating enough cached images so that it is seamless to the user. The problem is that the scroll position changes back when you kil…

I suppose that’s the way most maps operate: loads map tiles and anchors current viewport properties in URL. Difference is that there is no 'real scroll position with real scrollbar'.

Re: Google’s suggestion for a better infinite scroll?

#158

Post by thatthatis »

duncans wrote: post #56

This dentist had it all figured out 3 years ago http://tumbledry.org/2011/05/12/screw_hashbangs_building Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2592741

Sometimes there is no substitute for the insight of an outsider saying "that makes no sense, this is how I expect it to work"

Re: Google’s suggestion for a better infinite scroll?

#159

Post by alok-g »

a_m0d wrote: post #149
davb wrote: post #38

I'm surprised at how many people here seem to like infinite scroll. I personally can't stand it. Imagine having a book where no matter how much you read, it never seems to end. No milestones, no sense of progress. Just page after page after page. It just feels... icky.

Another reason to hate it, which my wife runs across all the time on Facebook - she scrolls by dragging the scroll-thumb down with her mouse. Once she gets near the bottom, the page jumps as the extra content gets loaded, and she has to find her place again.

This is the key reason why I hate it too.

Re: Google’s suggestion for a better infinite scroll?

#160

Post by alok-g »

davb wrote: post #38

I'm surprised at how many people here seem to like infinite scroll. I personally can't stand it. Imagine having a book where no matter how much you read, it never seems to end. No milestones, no sense of progress. Just page after page after page. It just feels... icky.

The best alternative I have come across so far is implemented at http://www.zdnet.com/ At the bottom of the page, there is a button "View More Articles". Plain and simple.
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