
A Bad UI Pattern - kapilkale
http://www.kapilkale.com/blog/the-worst-ui-pattern-in-existence/
======
mmanfrin
LinkedIn's shy footer is a drop in the bucket of troubles for their dev staff.
Things are so horribly broken. For instance, I have a notification that will
never go away: <http://i.imgur.com/cgJbc.png>

Their UI is noisy, broken, difficult to navigate, and seems like it was
designed entirely by MBAs who know nothing about their computers, let alone
design.

~~~
xxbondsxx
They also had a massive javascript variable coercion bug for a while. I got 10
or so connection requests, all with the text "undefined."

They certainly are the market leaders, but engineering skill is not exactly
through the roof...

~~~
mmanfrin
Not to mention the whole password leak fiasco, and the issue with their iOS
app grabbing secure personal data from the users phone.

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craigc
Just wanted to comment that at Vimeo we had this same problem, but approached
it in a slightly different way.

When you first scroll down on the logged in homepage (feed) you get to the
footer. It is only after you click "Load more videos" that we begin infinite
scrolling.

I think this makes it less intrusive since the user is initiating that they
want to see more (rather than clicking on a link in the footer for example).

See: <http://cl.ly/image/1d3L3H3c0P2q>

On top of that we use html5 push state to make sure that the current url is
updated as you scroll up and down the page with infinite scroll.

I'm not saying this solution is perfect, but it has seemed to work fine for
us.

~~~
harlanlewis
There's a trivial technical solution to the auto infinite scroll + page footer
problem. Just reveal the footer fixed to the bottom of the viewport when the
user scrolls. See Forrst's posts feed: <http://forrst.com/posts>

It's a bit on the noisy side, but resolves usability issues. The other simple
solution is Vimeo's approach (only load more content on request, eg a 'more'
button), but for most content feeds that's an unnecessary demand for user
attention on the UI instead of the content given the other design options
available.

Infinite scroll has more usability issues than the hidden footer, many not
solved as easily. Quick partial list:

\- the scrollbar loses its utility as a progress bar.

\- return the user to their scroll position if they followed a link from it
before hitting the browser Back button

\- finding the appropriate moments to preload additional results so the user
isn't waiting for content in a way that doesn't send the scrollbar into
unexpected calisthenics

~~~
acabal
Please don't ever do fixed headers or footers. They drive me crazy. It's like
being back in the web of the 90's where frames were all the rage.

With the exception of true, complete web "apps", web pages should be
_documents_ that I can scroll without hassle and not have content possibly
obscured by a bad implementation.

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doomlaser
This is hardly the worst UI pattern in existence, especially when you consider
that even a poorly implemented autoscroll is an order of magnitude improvement
over the UX experience it replaces.

~~~
mistercow
> even a poorly implemented autoscroll is an order of magnitude improvement
> over the UX experience it replaces.

I completely disagree. The _best possible_ implementation of infinite scroll
is better than pagination, but _most_ infinite scroll implementations are
worse to me than pagination.

First of all, the main problem I have with multi-page web sites is not that I
have to click a "next" button. That's such a minor inconvenience that it
doesn't even register. The main annoyance with arbitrary pagination is that
you can't easily search the page. Infinite scroll helps with that, but simply
having a single page per chunk of related data (i.e. one page for a blog post)
works better.

Secondly, with pagination, or with an ordinary non-infinite single page
layout, I can close my browser tab and reopen it, restart my computer, reload
the page, whatever, and when I come back, it will be scrolled right there in
the same place. I have never seen an infinite scroll implementation that could
do that.

Finally, bad implementations of infinite scroll just let the page grow and
grow, consuming resources without end. Especially on sites that have a lot of
images, this creates a practical limit to how far you can scroll before the
site becomes unusable. Even if the site offers an multi-page alternative
layout, you then have to find your place again at that time.

~~~
graue
_Secondly, with pagination, or with an ordinary non-infinite single page
layout, I can close my browser tab and reopen it, restart my computer, reload
the page, whatever, and when I come back, it will be scrolled right there in
the same place. I have never seen an infinite scroll implementation that could
do that._

Anyone who's used LocalStorage want to comment on whether it could solve this
problem by saving the scroll position? It seems doable.

~~~
bcoates
I've used history.replaceState API add a position indicator on long infinite
scroll pages into the page hash so you get

    
    
      http://somesite/foo#scroll=20121104120000
    

It has some rough edges, multiple jerky transitions on uncached load, for some
reason replaceState is an expensive operation on Chrome, but it was a better
experience than the alternative for that page (pagination or forgetful
autoscroll)

------
danso
I dunno, I find the iOS keyboard to be higher in my list of annoyances. While
typing, there's only one possible word that can be the autocomplete e term?
And I have to look up, stop typing, and hit that tiny "x" if I want to
override it? (I've overridden the autocomplete for "it's" and its so many
times that it's apparently given up trying to autocorrect for that)

And who thought that shaking the device to Undo a simple typo (which the
requires you to stop convulsing so that you can press OK or Cancel) was at all
natural? I've yet to meet someone who intuitively figured out that feature. I
had my iPad for a year before I realized it was my accidental sudden movement
while typing that was triggering the Undo.

In terms of total annoyance accumulated in day to day use, I'd say the iOS
keyboard is by far the dumbest UI pattern

~~~
lubutu
Sorry, but this really isn't relevant to the article. "A bad UI pattern" is
not an invitation to rant about your unrelated UI pet peeves...

~~~
danso
Well the OP was titled "The Worst UI Pattern in Existence". I offered a
current UI that is worse to show how absurd the OP is. Seems plenty relevant

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jinushaun
I HATE infinite scrolling, especially when some menu items are only available
in the footer. Either duplicate the links up top, statically position the
footer, or get rid of infinite scrolling entirely. Designers: Never ever put
anything mildly useful under infinitely scrolling content.

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sakopov
You know, i never actually noticed that issue on Facebook. It has such a
clusterfuck of an interface that that is the last thing I pay attention to
when i'm on Facebook. But i very much agree with the notion that infinite
scrolling is a poorly implemented feature on almost all sites which use it.
It's almost like it replaced pagination and forgot about the fact that you
can't go to a page anymore.

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kevingadd
I don't understand why people building these infinite-scroll pages don't just
make the footer float at the bottom of the screen. That addresses this problem
and lets you keep infinite scrolling.

~~~
eurleif
They don't want to lose the vertical space?

~~~
kevingadd
They already lost it when they put critical UX in a footer.

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lucasmullens
When I went to Facebook's HQ for a hackathon, they told me the solution they
use for this problem is to smash the escape key. It works for Facebook to
reach the footer.

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jfornear
This is pretty common, but yes, it is annoying. Try going to the "About" page
on Quora while logged in without accidentally following random users or
topics: <http://www.quora.com/>

A fixed footer could solve this issue.

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Kaivo
I never understood why there are so many sites using infinite scroll bars. I
don't find it useful to navigate. When I want to find something in the feed
after a few days, I need to scroll like crazy.

At least, pages offered some time frame where one would now around which page
to look. Maybe offering a page system using arrows would allow us to easily
move from a page to another, reducing the negative aspects of the page, or
giving the choice to the users whether they want infinite scrolling.
Nevertheless, it is useful for very dense feed where things go crazy and a
thousand pages would be added in a week.

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numbsafari
I'm a big fan of the dropbox.com website. They have a footer full of links on
the homepage, which is basically a minimalist site map that helps them avoid
having a navigational header on the landing page.

Once you login, though, the footer basically goes away and is replaced with a
small left-side, fixed "footer" that really contains non-task related links in
a drop-up menu.

This seems like a very clean solution to the problems outlined in the article.

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habosa
I noticed this on LinkedIn's website while I was interviewing with them and
looking for the contact link. I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to point out
such a flaw during the interview, so I never said anything. My internet
connection was sufficiently fast that I couldn't ever chase down the footer so
I just gave up and emailed my recruiter asking for the information I needed.

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TallboyOne
I most often encounter this when looking for an "advertise" link. If I'm
looking for TOS or something I can deal with three scrolls because chances are
I'm going to look for it once, but I think facebook having their facebook ads
section as a part of this is extremely annoying (if i dont remember the url).

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Hawkee
How about when the bottom is reached the footer becomes fixed with an X over
to the right to close it? That way you never need to chase it and if you want
to scroll without it you can just close it. Or rather than requiring a click
it can become unfixed after a number of seconds?

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esalman
There is one link in facebook.com footer that I need to access occasionally
(developers). But not so regularly as to bookmark it. So when I do need it, I
do a middle-click scroll, move the mouse to the bottom of page and try to
click on that link. It works after 2-3 clicks.

Yes, abysmal.

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callil
Tumblr is a good example of a website that has solved this problem. In the
Dashboard, they have a footer a lot like the footer #2 in the Facebook
example. It also makes use of the jump to top jquery plugin that makes using
infinite scroll a breeze.

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oftenwrong
<http://imgur.com/> is guilty of this

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karolisd
Is there any site designed from the start to autoscroll that has a footer?

It seems like these sites implemented autoscroll after existing for years and
left the footer as a vestigial organ that no longer serves any purpose.

~~~
zevyoura
The problem is that they do still serve a purpose.

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baddox
Bad work, whoever changed the title of this submission. Don't keep it up.

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pud
I recently came up with a solution for this problem on my site. When you
scroll down a few pages, the footer appears in a fixed position.

See: <http://fandalism.com>

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lampe
you are talking about bad ui pattern?

why no one talks about the new youtube????

------
martinced
Infinite scrolling in itself is considered by some to be a terrible UI
pattern.

I understand the 'need' due to the tiny screen size of most smartphones but
why oh why force it down the throat of desktop users?

With infinite scrolling I'm losing one important ability: I can't just check
where the scrollbar is and "come back" later to that place. It's hard to
explain but it's something I can do very easily. With infinite scrolling I'm
screwed.

Couldn't this be solved by serving, right from the start, a page that has a
gigantic height (e.g. 5 000 pixels tall or 10 000 pixels or any unit you find
suitable) and then if you scroll down "too fast" you see that the stuff is
"loading..." ?

This wouldn't be "infinite" but I sure wouldn't be as confused.

~~~
diminish
Indeed infinite scroll is annoying in the presence of footer, or in the case
of huge pics to be downloaded, or when doing scroll bookmarking.

Another bad UI pattern at this blogging site is the lack of a home page link.
It pushed me to struggle on my tablet just to see who the guy is.

~~~
king_jester
I've seen people talk about infinite scroll usually as an alternative to
pagination. Outside of infinite scroll and pagination, are there any better UI
patterns for the desktop web?

