Scrolling has made a complete comeback which was once considered a taboo, as one of the most popular technique in past few years. Users are appreciating the sites where scrolling is a necessity. By dropping old blemishes, scrolling is coming as an inventive interaction Website Design element which indicates that designers need to learn new rules.

UI designers have adjusted with the surpassing of mobile device users with desktop users. And more the users spend time on small screens, more the scrolling becoming a necessity. But there are other aspects. There has to be a high speed internet available enabling the scroll quick way to access the information needed rather than clicking from one page to another. The growth and development of social media has also paved the way for this technique as it also harbors their wealth of user generated content.

When this technique is mixed with long scrolling apace with card based design, it let the users a never ending bite sized stream viz. perfect for websites designs as well as for mobile devices. Users do not actually mind scrolling. In order to give smoother experience for scrolling, spacing out and not jamming everything above the fold needs to be done. 

The misconception regarding scrolling became famous because it was considered as intentional design pattern. Earlier it was much more tough to make it a visual treat for the users. As you can understand a very long page which is full of text is not considered a very engaging layout.

As you start engaging the long scrolls as a canvas for describing the start, middle and end using graphics icons and animations, then you see it attracting the user’s attention. Few of the hybrid patterns are emerging as a trend in scrolling which involves same interactive interface without stretching the whole site vertically.

Is Scrolling recommended for you?

There are pros and cons of everything. Of each designing technique and tool, there are people who love it and those who hate it. In both the cases, neither is totally right or wrong. That is the reason why weighing all the considerations become important.

Merits of Scrolling

1. Boosts interaction

With ever changing element of constant storytelling method, entices the user to have more interaction.

       2. Quicker

Long scrolling is quicker than clicking through complex navigation path and does not slow down or restricts the user experience.

      3. Attracts the users

User friendly web designs promote the interaction and more time on the website helping the users with discovering relevant content.  

     4. Responsive design

Scrolling simplifies the differences which complex page designing across devices with various screen sizes and capabilities have.

     5. Gesture and tap controls

Scrolling is linked with touch and swiping becomes much easier than repeated taps on various places of the screen. Users are accepting it as a method for displaying data. 

     6. Amazing design

Outcome of few clicks can be faster interaction for game like user experience.

Demerits of Scrolling 

     1. Rigid users

Some users resist changes in the website. Majority of them adopted the technique because of its rampant reputation now. 

     2. SEO flaws

Only one page for the website can have negative effect on the SEO.

     3. Disorientation

There has to be a connection between the content and scrolling otherwise users will be confused.

     4. Difficulty in navigation

To counter for the awkwardness of going back to the previous content on the page, top navigation should be created where every item must be connected to a page section.

     5. Website speed

Site speed may be slow down because of images and videos of large quantities especially those which depends upon JavaScript and jQuery.

    6. No footers included

A sticky footer is preferable for smooth navigation because otherwise the users can get confused by less clarity on further navigation at the bottom of the site page.

Social media sites like facebook and twitter has helped popularizing the technique many years ago with constant and wide scale usage of user generated content which does well with scrolling. Rational navigation which is used in goal oriented sites like e-commerce ones have lengthy pages.

Lengthy sites requiring more scrolling will remain there. While there are rise or low in the number of screens on popular devices small screen is the future because it requires more scrolling. Some web designers believe that the future of web design is going from long scrolling to “pageless” designs.

They need to think more radically about what users want in terms of content and consuming information in different environment.

Interaction design is the base of long scrolling website design.  Users don’t mind the lengthy scrolling if they like using it and find it intuitive.

 About The Author

The article is written by Tanuja Dongre, associated with SureVin, one of the leading service providers of BPO, ITES, Skill Development services, Digital Solutions & Marketing, Data Enrichment & Management Service, Training solutions and HR Consultancy to our clients. With the right balance of technical expertise and vast industry knowledge, SureVin strives to create customer satisfaction considering the nature of work with an innovative approach maintaining integrity and confidentiality of the business.