Website Design: "waterfall stream" is better, or "next page" is better?

　　

 

Source: Desiring Clicks

When designing websites or applications with a large amount of data, we often encounter the problem of using Pagination or Scrolling to automatically load and present data.

When loading new information, Facebook and Twitter pages are automatically loaded using mobile scrolls. After Pinterest became popular, many website designs use the design nicknamed "waterfall stream. However, we can still see that many websites, such as Google, the search engine giant, and the photo sharing platform, still use pagination to present the search results.

　　Should I select pagination or scroll?

What are the differences between the two data presentation methods? Which one is better?

The answer should be: "It depends ......".

When designing a social networking website, the materials to be presented are very real-time. The first thing users want to see is the latest news and the latest status of friends, the next step is to gradually read the information he has not read.

This kind of data is sorted by time and changed in a very large nature. If the data is displayed by page, the content represented by each page number is greatly changed. If pagination is used, it may be a bad method. Imagine that every time you open a book and flip to 38th pages, you will see different content, which should be a very troublesome thing.

In contrast, the materials presented by Google and Flickr are search results, which are relatively less variable than the dynamic messages of friends.

Users will be impressed every time they flip pages. When the user finds the information on the third page and needs the information next time, he will probably remember the correct position of the information through the page number, instead of rolling up or down the scroll wheel to find the required information.

　　

 

　　

 

　　Can we combine them?

If the data type is indexed, for example, the director's list can be indexed by the first letter of the last name or the name of the movie by the word index, making indexes into pages is also a good method. You can quickly find Peter Jackson, the Lord of the Rings, from the "J" page.

　　

 

There are also many applications that further combine the two rendering methods. In iOS's "Contact Information" software, what is presented is to present your address book in Mobile scrolling mode; however, a pen and English letter are added to the right hand side of the screen. In addition to quickly sliding your fingers to the screen of your mobile phone to find information, you can also quickly find the required information by searching indexes.

　　

 

You can select or edit the information displayed by the website or application. If you use the paging method, assume that you have selected three options on the screen and then click the next page, at this time, the user may be confused about whether the three options on the previous page are still being checked. In this case, it may be convenient to use a scroll to present data.

　Data type is the essence of design presentation

When presenting a scroll, users often read several pages and get more information. However, if you design a website with one or more pieces of data, it may be difficult for a user to find what he wants in the first or second pieces of information.

In fact, data is the essence of presentation. The design of paging and mobile scroll has its own advantages and disadvantages. Of course, no matter which method you use, you must present the data in order to find the most appropriate method.

Source: http://techorange.com/2013/01/24/pagination-or-scrolling/