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Why Infinite-Scrolling in Mobile Apps is Destroying Content Consumption
71–77 of 77 posts
Re: Why Infinite-Scrolling in Mobile Apps is Destroying Content Consumption
#72Many of the complaints here can be solved via a good implementation of infinite scrolling. The URL should auto-update to reflect the current state of the content that has been loaded onto the page (the only exceptions are when the content is highly dynamic and pagination becomes somewhat meaningless over even short time intervals). Either manual invocation of the scrolling should be necessary (so access to the site f…
Or, it could just be different pages of content and the back button actually works in every instance and the scrolling position is automatically (and accurately) preserved by the browser. As opposed to infinite scroll with updating URLs that inserts 10 different items in your browser history, breaking proper back button functionality to fit the view of what a designer thinks are all the pages you visited while you, a…
You're describing poor implementations of infinite scrolling. Like I mentioned, in most cases it's possible to avoid all the issues you just described. Whether this is done or not depends really on how much effort the programmer wants to put into it. Also, just to be clear, this:
> As opposed to infinite scroll with updating URLs that inserts 10 different items in your browser history
is avoided with correct usage of the HTML5 history API. You can update the URL without inserting a bunch of extra pages into the browser's history.
Re: Why Infinite-Scrolling in Mobile Apps is Destroying Content Consumption
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
From experience, I can confirm that there is a pretty massive subjective difference between scrolling through a book vs. reading it in page size chunks. When I scroll through something, especially if it is dense, I tend to be continually moving the page so that I keep the sentence I am reading in the middle of the screen. Since I often scan up and down around a point in the text to gain context and solidify the meani…
I think you're not the only one. I feel sort of a sense of anxiety in that I have to keep scrolling while reading if I'm reading a book without discrete pages (infinite scrolling also becomes a distraction from the content). If the layout is reformatted as pages, I know when a page begins and ends and don't have that feeling any longer. I'd never willingly implement or recommend infinite scrolling on a website or mob…
Yes! There is this headlong sense of just rushing through the text - a sensation of speed and "flow" that doesn't really impart any understanding.
Re: Why Infinite-Scrolling in Mobile Apps is Destroying Content Consumption
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or, it could just be different pages of content and the back button actually works in every instance and the scrolling position is automatically (and accurately) preserved by the browser. As opposed to infinite scroll with updating URLs that inserts 10 different items in your browser history, breaking proper back button functionality to fit the view of what a designer thinks are all the pages you visited while you, a…
You're describing poor implementations of infinite scrolling. Like I mentioned, in most cases it's possible to avoid all the issues you just described. Whether this is done or not depends really on how much effort the programmer wants to put into it. Also, just to be clear, this: > As opposed to infinite scroll with updating URLs that inserts 10 different items in your browser history is avoided with correct usage of…
I don't think I've ever seen an infinite scroll website implemented correctly. Nor have I ever seen one that works well on my phone. Which is probably why I generally never go back to infinite scroll websites aside from the social media biggies.
Re: Why Infinite-Scrolling in Mobile Apps is Destroying Content Consumption
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're not the only one. I feel sort of a sense of anxiety in that I have to keep scrolling while reading if I'm reading a book without discrete pages (infinite scrolling also becomes a distraction from the content). If the layout is reformatted as pages, I know when a page begins and ends and don't have that feeling any longer. I'd never willingly implement or recommend infinite scrolling on a website or mob…
Yes! There is this headlong sense of just rushing through the text - a sensation of speed and "flow" that doesn't really impart any understanding.
Yep. I understand where the logic comes from to implement them (don't have to click to see more content), but I think it comes at a cost.
It also helps that my browser implements a "fast forward" mechanism, where I can go to the next page in pagination without actually clicking a link. Just have to do a mouse gesture or click the arrow buttons on the mouse. If it were something more commonly used (unlikely to happen sadly) it would make browsing paginated content so much easier.
Re: Why Infinite-Scrolling in Mobile Apps is Destroying Content Consumption
#76> After spending hours scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Flipboard our mind feels tired. We feel intellectually bloated, and yet completely unsatisfied. Why? Because there is more out there. What if I’m missing out on something? What if there is some critical piece of knowledge just three flicks of my finger upwards? The author seems to be essentially describing an addiction, and suggesting that the c…
From experience, I can confirm that there is a pretty massive subjective difference between scrolling through a book vs. reading it in page size chunks. When I scroll through something, especially if it is dense, I tend to be continually moving the page so that I keep the sentence I am reading in the middle of the screen. Since I often scan up and down around a point in the text to gain context and solidify the meani…
I tend to keep the line I'm reading at the top of the page. It's annoying if I want to reread something because I missed comprehension, but it makes me faster than needing to figure out where the next line begins while performing a visual carriage return and line feed.
Personally, I love infinite scrolling when I'm consuming content. The problem I face is when it is online content and I've followed a link. This isn't a problem for websites I view in a computer, because I usually just open a new tab and when I close it, I'm right back where I left off. If the site or application stopped after only 20 items, perhaps it was that 21st item I would have really been interested in reading.
For the past several years I've mostly switched to devices like my phone and tablets. Applications don't often feature the same approach and can't as easily return to the view I was looking at. This really limits the usefulness of infinite scrolling. If the application unloaded in the background, when I return to it, the view has reset itself at the top of the list. If I'm a hundred "pages" into the stream, I need to start over with new content that has arrived since I started reading, scroll for a few minutes until I start to recognize content that was close to where I left off, and then actually find where I went off on a tangent.
One solution to fix this problem would be a user enabled filter that hides content that I've scrolled past and only shows "fresh" content. Pagination usually solves this problem for you by having a view that includes where you are in the list. Of course that is invalidated when the whole stream is reset, but if only 10 new items have been added, it wouldn't take that long to resume where I left off.
Finally, sites that weight the ranking, like Reddit or Hacker News, cause both systems to foul up. Since the content resorts it is practically impossible to determine "where you left off." Implementing a mechanism to hide headlines for posts I've already scrolled past, would go a long way to resolving this last problem. In a best case scenario, I'd be more productive. In a worst case scenario, I'd be no better off than I am today, but it is difficult to think of situations where this design wouldn't be beneficial to the end user.
Re: Why Infinite-Scrolling in Mobile Apps is Destroying Content Consumption
#77You can also add that it's impossible to reach the site's footer where we expect to find the more detailed navigation elements of a site (like easy access to Contact, About, etc) and that it breaks the back button when designers make up their mind that you just scrolled through 10 'pages' on their site and updated the URL 10 times, so when you click back to escape their overloaded site to the site you came from, you…
Reaching the footer could be solved by floating the footer and scrolling the text from behind it. This of course causes problems with having less space onscreen for the content you probably care about, but it is solvable.
Perhaps it could be designed to rise into view if you move the mouse cursor to the bottom of the screen, or in mobile application, perhaps it is visible when scrolling but after a predetermined timeout, it lowers out of view.
Another possibility would be for it to show when you scroll back in the list, like the address bar does with Chrome on Android. It is a little less discoverable, especially since the direction the footer would move is counter-intuitive to the scrolling movement, but once that behavior is seen the first time, I'm willing to bet that it is easily recognized and understood how to bring it up again in the future.
This isn't really a problem with infinite scrolling, but it may be a problem with the implementation.