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Endless pages: Ditching the "Next" button
"Pagination," i.e. turning a long set of, say, search results into a series of pages with "Next" and "Previous" buttons, is no fun. It can be a pain to implement, and is very much a pain to use, and yet it exists on every site that pulls a lot of records from a database. Surely we can't load all of the records at once if there are thousands of them, so is there an alternative? Yes! And I have a feeling some of you have already guessed the magic word--Ajax. Web developer Peter Forde has written an article explaining the "endless pageless" technique, which uses Ajax to automatically and seamlessly load more results from the server as you scroll toward the bottom, which guarantees that you'll never have to click on another "Next" link as long as you live.You can take a look at the technique in action on this page. This technique isn't brand new, of course--Microsoft, for example, has employed it for a long time on Live.com Image Search--but it's still fairly rare. There's also one caveat that Peter Forde doesn't mention: With his implementation, it's not possible to bookmark or link to a particular point of the results. He cleverly uses cookies to avoid breaking the browser's Back button, but without a permalink the technique still isn't ready for all situations. However, as the technical limitations are overcome, I think we'll be seeing fewer and fewer Next buttons around the web.
Comments
9
Subscribe to commentsAlex MNov 2nd 2006 1:24PM
Have you ever tried browsing through old DLS rss feeds in Google Reader?
If I remember correctly it fetches in increments of 20. It DOES work quite nicely, and I can't wait till the normal Google search does the same.
MonotoNov 2nd 2006 1:27PM
And Google already has this concept working in Google Reader. As I scroll through my feeds, it loads 20 posts at a time until I get close to the bottom when it starts loading the next 20.
markNov 2nd 2006 1:55PM
i was just going to comment on my google reader and it's awesomeness. i see two people beat me to it allready.
DNov 2nd 2006 3:50PM
Ok, but what about the times that I know my result is on page 15, for example my site for a specific search? Very common in SEO and most SEO programs are built around the idea of multiple pages. Also, I dont expect sites that want content indexed by google to use this feature as I'm sure it'll be an obstacle for spiders. I see the appeal of it, but I doubt it'll take off anytime soon.
apersonNov 2nd 2006 4:32PM
Also, don't forget Google's searchmash does endless scrolling.
Andrei MouravskiNov 2nd 2006 11:49PM
I personally hate this implementation. The page example, at least, reminds me too much of those pages with static frames on the sides, which just disorient me. With this implementation, I don't have the tactile response of turning or reading a page, and so am further annoyed. It just seems unnatural to have all the text at once like that with no landmarks to guide your way.
Perhaps, instead, they made an ajax script that would dynamically create "pages" which you could then turn, or, like in a pdf/word processor, moves onto the next page when you go low enough.
The way it seems to me is like a really long hallway whose walls are always the same and with no end in sight. If you were to add doors to this straight hallway and you knew there were 5 doors total, then it would feel a lot more natural. At least, I think so.
BCNov 2nd 2006 4:46PM
Google was testing this for awhile. When using Google search on my laptop the next page would automatically appear when I reached the bottom of the page. I'm using Maxthon w/IE7.
It stopped behaving that way a couple of weeks ago. I liked the way that endless scrolling worked, but I really missed being able to jump to certain pages in the search results. Combining the methods would seem to be the best way to implement this feature.
whatevsNov 2nd 2006 6:17PM
anything that departs that much from a user's expectations is doomed to failure unless it is implemented in a way that seems natural -- endless scrolling is not it, imho.
Sunny RodriguezNov 2nd 2006 8:14PM
This new button-free style has also been on the search engine Snap.com