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This game-related app is navigated through the sidebar, and there are tabs that in the main section to further navigate an area.

In the 'Updates' tab (shown), I am questioning how much information to show in each container, and how to use scroll vs pagination.

Releases are generally short, just the name of the new version and a little text to sum up what's new. Blogs can be much longer.

The client suggested that there could be around 20 releases displayed (they can be uploaded even a few/a day depending on the game developer) and then there should be a "next page" option, so it's not overwhelming.

Blog - there should be around 5 post (considering they are much bigger) and then again "next page" option.

Those "next pages" are meant to be displayed within the container, not a whole new page.

I am starting to consider leaving pagination behind me and focusing on scrolling. But I feel I should then consider changing that layout as I don't believe infinite scrolling would be comfortable to deal with in that "Releases" table.

Is it wrong to include both scroll and then pagination on the bottom of the container? (or should pagination be glued to the bottom of the container, with scroll "beneath" it?). And is there the best way to display pagination in this context?

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    @JeffZeitlin Your comment should really be an answer. Comments are mainly for clarifying questions and requesting more information. Consider using your content to create an answer, and perhaps backing up your statement with a link or screenshot.
    – dennislees
    Commented Mar 9, 2018 at 15:55
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    This question, like so many others, appears to exist because a client or stakeholder has some idea of how the interface should be. I'm personally not sure why you're so concerned about the releases section being "overwhelming". Have you considered the use cases here? Most users will never read more than a few words of this section, and in the case that a user comes in with a specific task in mind (e.g. to find the contents of a specific release) they'll simply scroll through the list until they find what they are looking for. Pagination adds no practical value here.
    – dennislees
    Commented Mar 9, 2018 at 16:02
  • If your stakeholder insists on pagination, put some event tracking on the buttons. Then after a few weeks of virtually no use, you can propose a data-supported alternative : )
    – dennislees
    Commented Mar 9, 2018 at 16:10
  • @dennislees - I wrote it as a comment because on many other stacks, actual answers tend to want supporting evidence/information, not just anecdotal statements, which my comment qualifies as. If that's not part of this stack's "culture", I'll happily post answers in the future. Per your recommendation, I've converted my previous comment to an answer.
    – Jeff Zeitlin
    Commented Mar 10, 2018 at 19:02

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A principle simple as it is:

  • Use pagination whenever User would want to either:

    1. reach some specific range of the list – e.g. when searching for some product on Amazon I often order the results by price, low-to-high, as it resembles quality to some extent; then, I want to quickly jump over the cheapos – but I do not know where the threshold between cheapos and cheap-but-good is and would not want to fiddle with price filter all the time to achieve – rather than that, I just skip some pages, then skip more or go back a few. Similarly, I might want to go through a list of posts ordered by time etc.

    2. continue their journey in the next session – so that it would be important for them that tomorrow they would still be on page 4. This applies to lists that do not change much in time.

  • Use infinite scroll whenever the items that keep loading are just the next chunk of ever-changing content – so timelines, newsfeeds, etc. – and giving User a possibility to get to some specific point is either not realistic or not necessary. Also, use it when your conversion goals depend on this kind of content consumption.

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  • Dominik- considering your arguments I should use pagination, but I've read that pagination divides content into arbitrary chunks and I don't think it applies in my case. I don't feel users would want to go to the 5th page of Releases to see what's changed 7 months ago. And if they did, they would scroll that far. However, assuming I would go with your advice, how should I apply it? I mean there are tables, so pagination at the bottom of the table without even a little bit of scrolling or can I leave the scroll as well as is in the mockup? I don't think they go well together.
    – Ola Osinska
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 10:09
  • Well, this shows how context is always more important than any generality. You can also take a look at my other answer to a similar question, where both solutions were combined: ux.stackexchange.com/questions/106514/…
    – Dominik Oslizlo
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 23:06
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Just about every program or website I use that supports this kind of structure eschews pagination in favor of "infinite scrolling". If you are concerned that your scroll may get "out of hand", i.e., too long, some of those sites and programs simply chop off the scroll after a fixed number of entries or a defined length of time, and give the user the option to visit the "full" log via another viewer/page location.

The site that I would consider the "canonical" example of this would be Calibre's "What's New" page.

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  • Hi Jeff, re: evidence. That’s why I referred to backing up your answers with a link or screenshot or both.
    – dennislees
    Commented Mar 10, 2018 at 19:59
  • Jeff - I like the idea that you showed with the reference, however I am wondering, how it would apply in my convention. I have tabs at the top of the page and then I would have to use another set of tabs to show Releases and Blog separately. Can I do it? Isn't it introducing chaotic layout?
    – Ola Osinska
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 10:20
  • "Chaotic" is in the eye of the beholder, and there's no actual need to duplicate the Calibre model exactly; the intent there was to show that it has a long-scroll panel, plus a link to the complete log that you're getting only the most recent (for some pretty big values of 'recent') segment of in the scroll. A different UX model is used by the "What's New" page of the (DEFINITELY NSFW) MCStories.com website; the entire page is scroll, with a link at the bottom for "what previously was recent", with far more data on it.
    – Jeff Zeitlin
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 11:34
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Infinite scrolling is a technique that allowing users to scroll through a massive chunk of content with no finishing-line in sight. This technique simply keeps refreshing a page when you scroll down it. Tempting as it may sound, the technique isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for every site or app. Scrolling is Good For Mobile Devices .Pagination is a user interface pattern that divides content into separate pages. If you scroll to the bottom of a page and see the row of numbers — that row of numbers is a site’s or app’s pagination.Easy sense of control and item location.

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