

Page Flips are Better than Infinite Scroll - mikewest
http://designdare.com/-page-flips-are-better-than-infinite-scroll

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brg
For media designed to be displayed in pages, my prejudice fits with the
author's claim.

However, infinite scroll in Bing's image search provides a more enjoyable
experience than using Google's paged image search.

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rubidium
The article says that page flips are better than scrolling for iPad books.

I'd say it's one of the form options
(<http://craigmod.com/journal/ipad_and_books/>) that designers for an iPad
should get to choose. Do you want your book to scroll or flip, or leave that
up to the reader?

For example, a book of long poems may work well to scroll through each poem,
but flip between different ones. The innovative thing about a digital screen
is that it de-couples length of a text from the need to flip the page.

~~~
wanderr
I think the choice should be up to the reader. Especially in texts with
figures, tables and illustrations, there's a better chance of being able to
see an illustration and the text describing it on the same screen if scrolling
is an option, whereas if the text/illustration are separated by a page break
and your only option is page flips, you're SOL.

~~~
glhaynes
The very best in most cases would be for the designer to make the 'right'
choice for the content... in other words, the best is for the user is to not
have a choice but never want one in the first place. It's a joy to use
something that's had that level of care put into it. Of course, when that
doesn't happen, you need options.

~~~
jsharpe
That doesn't work when the 'right' choice depends on user preference. The
designer can't make a single right choice, because there isn't one in the vast
majority of cases.

I am reminded of Malcolm Gladwell's talk about tomato sauce. Some people like
chunky. Some people like plain.

~~~
wanderr
Even if there were a right choice, what are the chances of designers choosing
it?

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wallflower
The very first thing I thought about after reading this article was memories
of listening to Disney stories on my toy 33rpm record player. You would follow
along while the beautifully voiced characters recreated the story. When you
had to change, Tinkerbelle would ring her bell as a notification to flip the
page. This article reminds me simultaneously of the cheesiness of that page
flip bell and of the fun and enjoyment of listening and reliving my favorite
stories over and over.

In this age of push notifications, continuous Twitter feeds and the like, I
think it is always a welcome return home to the visceral feel of reading an
engrossing book page by page.

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blahedo
Ever since the early days of the web, I've had problems with scrolling web
pages. I'll read a page or so, press pagedown or space to go to the next
segment, and read that---and my eye snaps right to the top of the window,
where the next chunk of text will be. UNLESS, that is, I'm on the last piece,
at which point I get _totally lost_ because I have no idea where to find the
last sentence I read. I have to re-scan from the top, searching for it.

So I knew _exactly_ what the author was talking about when he was extolling
the benefits of paged interactions!

~~~
glhaynes
Yes, hate it when that happens.

I think a very nice aspect of reading on a touchscreen with drag-to-scroll is
that this doesn't tend to happen. It makes things feel continuous and cohesive
rather than chunked.

~~~
wooster
Yeah, mouse wheels and touch scrolling have pretty much eliminated that
problem for me, so it's jarring whenever I have to use someone's machine
without those features.

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trefn
My favorite app on the iphone, an ebook reader called Eucalyptus
(<http://eucalyptusapp.com/>), has the best page turning model I've ever seen.

It's not a prerendered animation and turns at the same speed as you move your
finger. I find the experience to be as good as a paper book and significantly
better than apps with preset animations or a screen refresh.

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codebaobab
Stanza on the iPhone turns to the next page with a single touch on the right
side of the screen (and turns back a page with a touch on the left.) When I
first started using Stanza, I was annoyed that it didn't scroll. But now I
definitely prefer the touch-to-flip interaction.

It looks like the iPad is going to have a swipe-to-flip interaction. I'm
wondering if I'll like that as much as touch-to-flip.

~~~
upinsmoke
It does have touch to flip. Watch the video.

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gojomo
There may yet be some scroll-oriented in-page indicators that would offer one
proposed benefit -- "never having to wonder where to continue reading" -- of
page-centric presentation.

For example, a manually-positionable 'pagemark' you could use if turning away
from a block of text, or automatically-added lines/shading which capture where
you've scrolled to so far (with intelligent updating based on time lingering
at certain positions, or reversals of scroll-direction).

