When is it appropriate to use endless paging in a web application (e.g. auto load or a "see more" link)?
Examples
- Google Reader
This also creates a few issues for the user:
- Returning to the navigation elements or top of page
- Using the browser back and forward buttons
What are the pros and cons to this approach and how can the problems be mitigated?
Answer
In short - it's appropriate when the main use case of the page is "light browsing", such as in Flickriver, when sharing (email, etc.) only one thing on the page is irrelevant and when SEO matters less.
When I say "light browsing" I mean the user is basically just scrolling, looking for interesting things, without the need to commit or return to a specific item (which is what most people do on Flickriver).
Pros:
- "Seamless" or "smooth" experience browsing the page
- All the information is on the same page.
This shortens loading time when going to another page, does not force separating highly related elements just because there's no more room and also enables you to look for a certain work or phrase in that page.
Cons:
- Get back to elements is uncomfortable, since you can't mark the place on the page.
- If you want to share the information with someone, you'd have a hard time specifying the thing you want to share and will be forced to share the entire page and say "go down for about or search for..."
- From an SEO point of view, less pageviews is usually worse for your SEO, not to mention that search bots download only so much of the page, so the information below will not be indexed.
Mitigation:
It sounds like a good fit for such a page would not need to mitigate the cons, since they don't interfere with the common use cases of it. If you still have a real reason and want such a pattern, you can for example supply an alternative navigation that allows the user to "bookmark" locations on the page and then jump between them, try to hijack the back button to scroll up this much etc.
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