UX: Infinite Scrolling vs. Pagination [summary]

Can't bookmark position for later

Well, you can update the url as the user scrolls. This will allow you to even use the browser navigation keys to go back to the same place after drilling into some item. I've seen this done before.

Also take a look at Pinterest. I think they nailed it.

Okay here are some thoughts on using page based pagination;

• When using live data I would heavily discourage page based pagination. When the influx of new content is just high enough you could see the same data on new pages.
• When the user is required to use pagination to find the data they need there's something inherently wrong with your UX. It's most certainly a sign that users miss a few options to narrow the number of results.

To tackle arguments against infinite scrolling;

Feel slow when loading

This totally depends on the implementation, and when the new content is loaded in. Initially I load 40 items, and start loading the next 20 after the user has seen the first 20. This way there is almost always content. That is, unless the user continuously scrolls down. For that, see my point about UX and missing search functionality.

Can't use position restoration

This isn't a problem with live data as data is continuously becoming outdated. A search might need to be saved however. And when individual items can be bookmarked, most of the issues are gone. For further improvements one can fall back to cursor based pagination and store the cursors of the first and last elements, and restore to that. (See also my article about cursor based pagination.)

Can't have a footer

I cannot imagine what important features in a web app need to be put within a footer.

Personally I almost always go with infinite scrolling. This all however comes at a cost with regard to implementation time as infinite scrolling is much more difficult to properly implement.

To give an indication of some of the work going on behind an infinite scroll implementation;

• GraphQL API Design: Cursors
• Implementing pagination with GraphQL.NET and Relay This is an implementation which both facilitates infinite scrolling, as well as traditional page based pagination
• Cursor based pagination with SQL Server using C# (and SQL)

lol

Paged was decent when things are relatively static... the content of the pages shouldn't change frequently, like not within the time I'm paging.... Most implemetations of paging suck anyway... so paging is decent on small blogs, it sucks for community sites...

Feel slow when loading

This is just a bad implementation, not part of the desing pattern, you should preload the next content in an apporpriate time... many platforms get it right..

Can't bookmark position for later

This is rarely used, and is bad if not static anyway...

Can't have a footer

Remind me what's the stats on people looking and clicking on the footer? we all know it's just the trash ground, where do I put boring legal and corprate stuff? right the footer... (I've seen places with infinate scrolling + footer.. youtube commnet have some weird combo IIRC)