Digital Design Blog

Scrolling Enthusiasts, Unite!

Once upon a time, long pages that forced users to scroll were anathema. ‘Nobody looks below the fold,’ design stakeholders cried. ‘But if it’s useful content they will!’, others retorted.Finally, most people got over it. Now we see well signposted pages — bolding, bullets, heading structures — with strong information scent, clear indications of what might be beyond the fold, and options to see several pages or everything on one page. There’s still a keen eye on content hierarchy and the distribution of large screen resolutions but for the most part, long pages — even homepages — are accepted.

In fact, some sites have downright embraced the long page as a design element:

• The rofl.org internet meme conference site extends its homepage as you keep scrolling. They figure if you want more content and you’re happy to scroll, we’re happy to serve it up. Post after post is added to the page as you move down.
• Arriving at the Rapp Collins corporate site, you notice no scrollbar and no content (beyond an animation and a ‘I’m scrollaphobic link’) on the homepage. Once you move your mouse to the bottom of the screen the page rolls up to display navigation options. You get the sense that you’re on a journey, which ends with their contact details and the suggestion to connect. The presence of the ‘I’m a scrollaphobic’ link reveals that either not all users understood the interaction model in testing, or someone internally was nervous about its usability: clicking on the link opens a small navigation menu.
• Lake Nona, a site for a new housing development and community, also does away with a scrollbar, allowing users to move up and down and from right to left simply by pointing their mouse. Content shifts in reaction to the mouse pointer and invites the user to explore the site as if they were exploring the terrain of the community itself. Some pages are long, some pages are wide, and content transitions fly in from all directions. Most pages require some sort of user movement to reveal the full picture.

Each of these sites invites the user to poke around with their mouse to see what will happen and what further content is available. The idea that, as designers, you’re actually working with an infinite plane of pixels, has never felt stronger than on the Lake Nona example. And users are being asked to do a lot more with their mouse than just click on links and scroll the wheel or bar. These sites also ignore the fold essentially. In the digitial future, it seems, ‘lazy to scroll’ users better get their act together.