Thoughts on Infinite Scroll Blog Landing Page?

Seeking Advice
1

I’m designing a new blog landing page. I want to have dynamic filters by topic under the hero section and then all content related to that topic load on infinite scroll. I know there are SEO crawlable/indexation implications to infinite scroll, but those are solvable.

A few fellow co-founders are trying to talk me out of doing this, saying that it isn’t the right tool for the job. I don’t agree but I am open to feedback. I believe that infinite scroll is the best way to present content without the interruption of ‘load more’ or ‘next page’. We will also have dynamic filters for users who want to see a more curated list of our content.

2

Hate infinite scroll with my whole heart.

3
  1. Why do you hate infinite scroll? Do you think you’re in the minority given that all social media feeds are infinite scroll?
  2. What would you prefer instead? Pagination? ‘Load More’? Something else?
4

I don’t know about SEO, but as a user, I despise infinite scroll with the heat of a thousand suns.

5

  1. Why do you hate infinite scroll? Do you think you’re in the minority given that all social media feeds are infinite scroll?

  2. What would you prefer instead? Pagination? ‘Load More’? Something else?

6

  1. Social media is optimized for mindless scrolling. (Maybe call it doom scrolling.) In my opinion, blogs should be optimized for reading. Infinite scrolling detracts from this experience.

  2. Doesn’t matter to me — anything except infinite scrolling.

7

I’m actually surprised that others here don’t like infinite scroll. Here I thought I was the only one…

In any case, I primarily don’t like it because I have an old device/laptop. If you’ve got a lot of (especially media-heavy) content, then, after a while of scrolling, I can’t load anymore posts because my device just isn’t strong enough! Either it gets stuck in an infinite loading loop or my browser/device freezes/crashes.

On that note, another user commented on how infinite scroll can lead to bad social media habits? I didn’t know this, but I guess it makes sense? But if the content is bad, I don’t think someone would stick around regardless of infinite scroll. And I don’t think that infinite scroll is inherently bad, either. It’s useful for web searches, at least.

8

Infinite scroll is a UX dark pattern. Avoid.

9

Google says: ‘Dark patterns in UX are a design feature that subtly encourages users to perform a specific action.’

  1. Is that what you meant when you called infinite scroll?
  2. Why do you think it’s ‘bad’?
  3. What would you prefer instead and why?
10

  1. Yes. Infinite scroll is obviously designed to take control away from the user and force them to stay on your blog.

  2. Because you take away control from the user. If you want them to stay on your blog, write good content. Don’t try to cheat people’s attention spans. Social media already does this. Infinite scroll is ubiquitous on social media because they know it leads to more wasted time.

  3. Simply provide links to the proper pages. Infinite scrolling is an accessibility nightmare. How are users who rely on screen readers supposed to navigate?

11

It can be quite bad for both UX and SEO because it blocks users and Google equally from getting access to the end of the page. This has also been confirmed by John Mueller from Google.