Website design: "Waterfall flow" better, or "next page" better?

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Source: Desiring clicks

When designing a Web site or application with a large amount of data, the problem we often encounter is whether to use pagination (pagination) or move the scroll (scrolling) to automatically load and present the data.

Facebook and Twitter pages are automatically loaded with mobile reels when new information is loaded; After Pinterest became popular, many Web sites were designed to use this nickname "Waterfall Flow" design. But we can still see many sites, such as search engine giant Google, and photo sharing platform Flickr, still using pagination to render search results.

Should I use pagination or scroll?

What is the difference between the two ways of presenting data? Which one is better?

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

When designing a social-type web site, the information that needs to be presented is very immediate, and the first thing a user wants to see is the latest news, the latest status of a friend, and then the gradual reading of a message he hasn't read.

According to the chronological, the nature of the change is very large data, if the way of pagination, each page represents the content of the change is very large, if the use of pagination may be a more bad method. Imagine that every time you open a book, turn to page 38th, you see different content, it should be a very disturbing thing.

In contrast, the data presented by Google and Flickr are search results, which are relatively less variable compared to friends ' dynamic messages.

The user will leave an impression on each page. When the user finds the material on the third page, and the next time he needs the information, he will probably remember the correct location of the data through the page number, instead of using the scroll wheel to scroll up and down to find the information he needs.

Can you combine the two?

If the type of data can be indexed, such as the director's list can be through the first name index, the name of the movie can be indexed by word, then the index to make a component page is a good way. Users can quickly find the ring's director Peter Jackson quickly from the "J" page.

There are also a number of applications that combine two ways of rendering further, in the iOS "contact information" software, the presentation is a mobile scrolling way to present your address book, but in the picture of the right hand with strokes and English letters, in addition to quickly through the fingers of the mobile phone screen to find information, You can also quickly find the information you need through this search index.

If the information presented by a Web site or application can be selected or edited, in the way of pagination, suppose the user selects three options on the screen and then selects the next page, and the user may be confused about whether the three options on the previous page are still checked. It may be convenient to use the scroll to present the data at this time.

Data type is the essence of the way of design presentation

When a reel is rendered, the user often looks at a few more pages, get more information, but think about it, if you are designing a website with one or 20,000 information, it may be difficult for users to roll around in this or 20,000 data to find what he wants.

In fact, the information is the nature of the presentation, paging and mobile scrolls both have advantages and disadvantages of the design. Of course, no matter what kind of use, must be based on the form of data to present, to find the most appropriate method.

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