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Discussion on: Why I hate Infinite Scrolling

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Ben Sinclair

I generally dislike infinite scrolling for the reasons you state and for things like breaking the scrollbar (the browser or app's scrollbar still works to navigate backwards but does not give a useful indication of where you are in the content and will keep resizing itself as you move down)

You can make it better with things like section headings as you scroll down; if it's posts ordered by date then having a divider showing the date as it changes will keep people from feeling quite so overwhelmed. Making this divider into a clear anchor so people can bookmark it will help.

You also need to be aware of what happens when people follow a link and then use their browser's "back" button to return to your infinite scroll. If you don't land them at the same place (and I mean the same place, not just somewhere close) then they're going to hate you.

Something that indicates a percentage of progress would help, too, to take the place of the familiar scrollbar.