It's a common UX trend in many platform (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.. also Hashnode) these days. It's basically done to retain users for a longer time.
What's your opinion on this?
I don't like infinite scrolls. Are we some sort of dumb idiots to keep trying to go to the bottom of the page. I usually want the top 20 search results for my search. I prefer advance filters to ensure the item I want is at the top of the list. Infinite scroll is annoying and reflects the intelligence level of people using the product. Why should I ever want to pick an item not in the top 5?
For content, it makes some sense. But, only some. Infinite scroll does not play well with SEO. For SEO, content sites still have to do a paged implementation.
I have been thinking about this (on/off) last several months, I'm implementing infinite scroll (r) for Reddit app, in UX infinite scroll is just mess because of how Reddit works
let say I have loaded 50 submissions, by time user scroll to bottom and load-more-function invoked some of submissions will changes positions
means a submission (raising) that were 55 at load-time then became 49 at load-more-time will not be seen by user
in reverse content that were 50 in load-time then became 51 at load-more-time will look like duplicated submission to user
pagination will fix this problem for user from UX point of view, because user will be aware of load-next-page-action, also can move to previous page where the submission that raise to 49 position will be visible again... this is not possible with infinite scroll
however, from business point of view, if you depend on ads view as revenue stream, infinite scroll means more eye balls looking at your pages and placed ads, users will not even notice they have reached 20 pages scrolling but with pagination they may get lazy to click next button
I think IS is a truly unique tool that has to be levied properly to be useful--as such, the context of where and how it's used really matters. For most situations I've found the implementation of IS in a mobile environment fairly useful. Such as when viewing text messages or emails. Desktop applications are far less common and the one's I've seen implemented don't really do much. They end up only hiding content until you scroll down--which on desktop is pretty useless and causes friction between an end user and your content.
It's niche, but I do believe there is a place for it.
I don't like it. It solves one problem but introduces a whole lot more.
Basically...
...the list goes on. Basically I understand the appeal, but the problems far outweigh the benefits. If really pushed, why not give people a "load more" button and an "enable infinite scroll" checkbox? Let the user choose.
I'm with @azazqadir on this one. Not a big fan of infinite scrolls, certainly not on e-commerce sites. I'd like to stay in control and a button to show an X amount of products works perfectly in that case.
Not really a fan of Infinite Scrolling, but it does not make sense to apply it on just every other website.
Infinite scrolling make sense on Facebook, Twitter or Google Images. User on these websites are not searching for something in particular. They are just browsing to find interesting stuff.
Whereas infinite scrolling on Google Search won't make sense because the aim of search engine is to provide exactly what user is looking for on top position. If a search engine can't do that, then it means it's going down the path of Yahoo. Also infinite scroll may affect the performance of your website's speed and load time. It might even become an abomination on slower Internet. Another downside is that user cannot access the footer links.
If you still want to use infinite scroll on your website, like on blog, then my recommendation would be to use a "load more" button rather than forcing user to go through infinite scrolling.
Michael J. Ryan
Alpha Geek
I will throw in that I find it particularly annoying on FB and Twitter trying to find a post I made on my own stream/wall. I wish there was a more isolated search.