Google Tests an Interface Optimized for Infinite Scrolling | Hacker News Reader

Google Tests an Interface Optimized for Infinite Scrolling

googlesystem.blogspot.com

27 pointsGarbage22 comments

I hate infinite scrolling. With pagination at least you get a feeling of having completed something, of having got somewhere. With infinite scrolling you are stuck, scrolling forever.

The nice thing about Google Images infinite scrolling is that they combine it with pagination.

I think the title is misleading. If I'm not mistaken it's not actual infinite scrolling, the only change is the search bar and search tools remain in a fixed position. It's a nice change.

>The new interface seems to set the stage for a fluid design that removes pagination and replaces it with infinite scrolling.

The key phrase in the article is "setting the stage". Google hasn't switched to infinite scroll yet, but with a fixed header it seems most likely for them to do so soon.

I haven't seen it in action, but from what I saw in the video, it was actual infinite scrolling - the pagination controls got replaced with 'second page' content after scrolling down.

My guess is that the pagination controls are there to accomodate people with JavaScript disabled.

My favourite way to combine pagination with infinite scrolling (for reading, at least) is to use columns - the line after the bottom of the first column is at the top of the second column, and scrolling down scrolls all columns along line by line. Scrolling left and right snaps to columns, and scrolling right by one column is equivalent to scrolling down by one page. Scrolling right by one page is equivalent to scrolling down by page_height (in lines) times page_width (in columns).

Can you give an example? I have disliked all the column-based screen reading formats I've ever seen.

"The navigation bar, the search box and the search options sidebar have a fixed position"

I see this as "the revenge of designers" -- having anything permanently taking up the vertical space was pushed from "designers" for years and it always reduced usability for me. I'd prefer to see the results, not immense fixed space that doesn't contain anything. The picture is telling -- the permanent menu bar and the huge empty space around the search box and logo.

I despise frames. And let's call these fixed elements what they really are: frames. In addition to reducing the usable screen area (which is awful on my netbook's 1024x600 screen)[1], frames also break the page metaphor. Part of what makes the web easy to use is that interacting with each website works more or less the same. That is to say, the scrolling behaviour of web pages mimics a real-life piece of paper. If the entire website no longer scrolls as one uniform page, when visiting a new site, the scrolling behaviour is unpredictable with each site doing something different. My terminology is clumsy, but perhaps it is clear enough to understand what I mean.

[1] http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/1748/screenwaste.png

Have you got a second picture showing how it would be better?

This is the gist of it. http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/4007/screenwaste2.png

Okay: so going full screen with F11 would get you half way there.

It would be interesting if spoofing your user-agent would get you the other half of the way.

A reminder: you can use Alt to bring up the menu bar if you hide it.

If you're using TabMixPlus, there may be an add-on that gives you better performance.

Would you design for the 90% or the 10%? While it sucks that your experience is diminished on a netbook with a small browser viewport (which can be helped if you were to switch to Chrome instead of Firefox), this is only a problem for a very small percentage of the user-base with tiny screens. The rest get a very pleasant and improved site experience.

Does it suck for those in the ever-decreasing minority? Yep. Is it worth it? Absolutely.

> this is only a problem for a very small percentage of the user-base with tiny screens

No, it's not. http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/

I would design for both of your made up demographics. And in both cases I would preserve the page metaphor by not using frames.

Perhaps they can try another pattern (now seen on TechCrunch.com). Initially, the logo/header is sized normally. As you scroll down to the point where the header would disappear, it shrinks to a smaller height. Seems weird at first, but makes a whole lot of sense.

Please, please, never use recursive examples. They are confusing, distracting, make any presentation look poor, plus they show the author's lack of imagination. In this particular case I didn't quite get why Google appears on the right in the video until I saw that the guy was demonstrating Google Search by searching "google search".

"The most important change is that most navigation elements continue to be visible even when you scroll down. The navigation bar, the search box and the search options sidebar have a fixed position"

Strange that "position: fixed" hasn't found its way to popular websites before now. It's been supported by major browsers since the early zeroes (or late nineties?), the only exception being IE (for which you can easily make a fix).

Here's a page from ten years ago (!) describing "position: fixed": http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/menus

http://derstandard.at/ has fixed pieces of the interface for at least a few years but I really, really don't like it. Try it yourself. It looks good as long as you're actually not interested in the material inside. Unless you're designer of the site showing the features of the site to the boss, you're not likely to use the menus inside of the fixed areas. But this also explains why some sites end up having such interfaces. In my view, this is a sign of Google turning soggy inside as in:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2776046

Like all features, "position: fixed" can be applied in useful ways and in not so useful ways. I agree that Der Standard's way of using it isn't too good, but overall fixed positions are an excellent feature if you ask me.

It is very distracting to me. It usually is jerky causing me to look at it each time I scroll. It also takes a second for me to realize where I jumped to if I used page down, because I can not tell as easily where I am relative to where I was, visually. This is partly due to loss of relative distances but also because my eyes have momentarily followed the jerk.

The only fixed that I can handle is a fixed background if there is a large difference in contrast between the page background and main content background.

I hope this does not become a norm.

The "Preview" GMail theme has a variation of this, keeping the toolbar in a fixed position as you scroll. It's not infinite, though, as each inbox "page" contains 50 messages.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com