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How can the classic footer elements be integrated into an infinite scrolling layout?

I don't know if this question exists in the forum. But I was on Facebook and LinkedIn last night and I was frustrated out of my mind. They both have an infinite scroll (LinkedIn has less stories though) enter image description herewhere news stories just keep loading when you reach the bottom of the page. I managed to grab a screen just before it loaded new stories.But Facebook still has a footer which contains information for 'Legal', 'Careers' etc... and there was no freaking way of get to those.

Have they not thought about this usability problem? Is it not standard practice to have a sticky footer on websites with infinite scroll?

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Isn't simplier to find a static page: like settings, - and read the footer there? – m0nhawk Jan 4 at 16:13
I believe this previous question applies. – Matt Obee Jan 4 at 16:18
As Matt points out this has been asked before, however for future reference this question would have been in danger of being closed anyway, as it is very much in the it is a rant disguised as a question style of question, which isn't encouranged around here. With a bit of rewording to be more question and less rant-y this would be OK (but as it stands it's a duplicate anyway but please take this comment as some advice for future questions). – JonW♦ Jan 4 at 16:27
I think this question can be tweaked by OP to may be try and find out the reasons behind such big websites not implementing floating footer concept. And I don't seem to agree that it is a duplicate of the question referenced above. It could be termed as "Also See" but definitely not a "duplicate". OP's question intends to discuss "floating footers' practicability and application in current mobile world" and not "how floating footers can be implemented and the mechanisms behind it". I rest my case. – Mohit Jan 5 at 6:51

marked as duplicate by JonW♦ Jan 4 at 16:28

This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.

1 Answer

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This is a known usability problem which was called out in this blog. Apparently both Facebook and Linkedin are aware of it but it has been fixed.

As per best practices for infinite scrolling as per this article, it is highly recommended to give the choice to the user to load more content as he needs to ensure he can reach the content below the infinite scroll. To quote the article

Use a More button if you have a footer

If your site has a footer and you’re going to use infinite scrolling, use a More button to load new content. New content won’t automatically load until the user clicks the More button. This way users can get to your footer easily without having to chase it down. Without the More button, users would only have a few seconds before the footer disappears off the page. This makes getting to the footer difficult. With a More button users, users would have control over content and the footer.

enter image description here

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Quora does this inconsistently. They have infinite scroll on the for the first three "bottom-of-the-page" encounters, then gives the user a More button, in spite of having an actual feature (shuffle) in the footer. – Ben Mordecai Jan 6 at 3:40

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