Infinite scrolling in web designing is a technique that helps to load content continuously on a website as the user scrolls down. A common example of infinite scrolling is the continuous loading of feeds on your Facebook timeline. It has been popular since the social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook have introduced them.
Infinite Scrolling is Not For Every Website
Continuous scrolling might be useful for content that has a constant flow and possesses comparatively flat structure. Additionally, all the items must belong to the same level of the hierarchy and have a similar impact on the user. Such endless pages are useful mostly to the users that often need to access interesting content for the purpose of time-killing.
Although there are a number of advantages to the endless scrolling, but it must be applied with cautions. The two important things to consider in this are the content of the website and the user’s motivation.
The Chaos Behind Infinite Scrolling
- Continuous Scrolling is not recommended for websites that have some specific goal-oriented tasks such as locating a specific product on the website.
- Continuous scrolling if not implemented carefully, can hurt the user experience.
- Another concern with infinite scrolling is its usability on the desktop as it follows an approach that might look deceiving. Infinite scrolling breaks the scroll bar that inaccurately displays the page length.
Pros:-
- Infinite Scrolling enables a website to load faster as compared to regular loading time.
- It is suitable for websites having a large number of images.
- Infinite Scrolling allows easy accessing of content through touch screen devices.
- Users need not wait for content to load on the website.
Cons:-
- One of the major concerns with it is that there is no footer information on the website.
- Infinite Scrolling faces some SEO issues as a line of Google Analytics code might not provide all the information and you may need some third-party tools.
Using Infinite Scrolling or Pagination
The major advantage of paginating the content against infinite scrolling is that pagination brings more conversions. This is because it focuses on the usability instead of working deliberately on the lucrative designs. When you employ infinite scrolling for exploring the content, it can prove to be more engaging and make user stay longer on the web page. On the other hand, pagination provides users with less time to access content allowing them with some time for decision making and hence look into the desired information.
