What Is Infinite Scrolling?

Date First Published: 28th August 2022

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: Web Design

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 5/10

Learn more about what infinite scrolling is in this article.

Infinite scrolling is a web design functionality that automatically loads content as the user scrolls down to the bottom of the page with no visible end line. It allows users to infinitely scroll down. In most cases, it is not infinite, but the user can often scroll a very long way down before they reach the end, such as in Google Images and Google Search on mobile devices. Infinite scrolling is often used as an alternative for pagination, which breaks down content into separately numbered pages. Similar to pagination, infinite scrolling is used to prevent the page from becoming overloaded with content and speed up the page loading time by only showing a small amount of content at first. If users want to see more, they can scroll down. Infinite scrolling works by refreshing the page when users reach the bottom, which is known as 'lazy loading'.

Note:

Some websites may have a 'load more' button at the bottom of their content, which still uses the infinite scrolling functionality, but it is manual, not automatic. This type of infinite scrolling requires users to click much more, but allows users to get to the footer more quickly as when more data gets loaded as soon as users reach the bottom, it will push the footer out of view.

Is Infinite Scrolling Suitable?

The suitability of infinite scrolling depends on the type of page. Infinite scrolling is suitable for:

• News feeds - These are very frequently updated and infinite scrolling will allow users to read as much information as possible.
• Image and visual websites - Users will be able to see images more quickly and there will be much fewer clicks to find the image they are looking for compared to pagination. Users will not have to constantly click 'next' and wait for new pages to load.
• User-generated content pages (e.g. comments). YouTube uses infinite scrolling in the comments of videos.

Infinite scrolling should be avoided on:

• Goal-oriented tasks (e.g. tasks requiring people to locate specific information or compare options)
• Ecommerce sites - Finding products on an endless page with no sorting by page number or navigation techniques is very difficult. Users often only want to view a few products relevant to their search query. Pagination is recommended for ecommerce sites.

Advantages and Disadvantages Of Infinite Scrolling

• Users can read huge chunks of information more quickly as it does not require users to click to move between separate pages, tabs, or screens. They can simply swipe down to generate new content.
• Using infinite scrolling can encourage users to stay longer on the page, increasing user engagement.
• It is mobile-friendly as a numbered bar is often too small to click on for mobile devices.

• It can make the page seem endless and users can get lost in the content with no idea of when they will be finished. Making users scroll a long way down to find specific information can irritate them and make them leave, which is bad for user experience. Unlike pagination, when users get to a certain point, they cannot bookmark their location and come back to it later, so they will find themselves back at the top of the page if they leave and return and may forget where they got up to.
• On desktop and laptop computers with scroll bars, automatic infinite scrolling can trick users. Some users look at the scroll bar to determine how much longer of the page is left. Infinite scrolling will cause the scroll bar to inaccurately display the page length and could tell them they are almost at the end when they are not.
• On some infinite scrolling websites, especially ones with large images, devices with limited resources, such as old mobile phones and tablets, can start slowing down or even crashing due to the large amount of content that has been loaded.
• It can cause issues with web crawlers. Search engine bots cannot mimic the behaviour of human users. Because infinite scrolling relies on JavaScript to load content, bots cannot reach all of the content, leading to anything outside of this range not being crawled, which is bad for SEO.