Making a Case For Endless Scrolling

Eric — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:30:02 +0000

Introduction

Every user action has an associated cost, and the key to many sites’ conversion lies within minimizing this cost, whether it means minimizing “clicks” or simply requiring less from the user.

By and large, it comes down to efficiency and accomplishing a task in as painless of a way as possible. USAA’s Deposit@Mobile is a great example of how a company can improve customer experience & perception by simplifying the tedious process of depositing a check.

In my opinion, Endless Scroll is a technically simple idea that greatly reduces friction in every day activities.

Current Trends

Endless Scrolling has been discussed before, but has seen limited adoption despite Google Reader’s seamless implementation:

Seeing how many, many, many sites offer a constant stream of new content, pagination often interrupts the flow. Granted, many sites (Google) require paginated content to distinguish valuable content from less desirable.

User Experience

Besides streamlining the experience for the user, there are potential negatives to be mitigated:

Any content below main content may be “bumped” for newer content. The footer may never be accessible if it lies below new content.
Context of content (such as the date or event-related to content) may be lost.
Toggling this behavior would require user interaction, which defeats the purpose of automating the “Next Page” event entirely.
“Progressing” through content goes away entirely, as pagination clearly defines where the user is in terms of progress (”Page 23 of 61″).

Many of these potential problems have already been solved in Google Reader’s implementation by doing the following:

“Frame” the content container so that main page components: header, navigation, footer, etc. are still accessible no matter how far the user scrolls.
Clearly define the context of the content, such as the date, author, or category.
Message the user on how much progress has been made: “23 of 467 Articles Loaded“.

Conclusion

For now, it seems Endless Scroll is best as an “opt-in” option for the user, whether by bookmarklet or other means. If the behavior of the user is almost always to continue on to more content then Endless Scroll can prove beneficial.

Resources