Fixed items on table list - how should I paginate it?

Question

I have a table list that consists of two areas:

• The top area has 'new' items which require attention and action from the user. It is important that these are noticed.
• The other area includes the list with all the previously treated items.

Because the list is very extensive we need some kind of pagination. After some study, and taking in consideration the context and type of application, we decided to use traditional pagination in these lists.

The image below shows the interface:

I looked at the Gmail inbox UI and Hotmail new interface:

In Gmail:

I could have sections (for instance - Unread list) in my inbox, but pagination stays disabled. However I can choose the number of items to show.

In Hotmail:

I could have sections too (for instance - flagged items), but I still have pagination. However, if I change to page 2, these items are hidden.

Our question is whether to maintain the top items when changing the page (go to page 2, for instance) or hide it in the next pages, but having same kind of warning to show that there are items to be treated. What do you think is the best approach?

Answer 1

Alternative proposition :

Add a search input, make your list infinite scrolling, use some tabs to classify the items if you can and it make sense and avoid pagination.

Here a nice example :

The more you scroll the more members are displayed

Answer 2

If the user moves to page 2 or beyond, they are interested in older items; so I would recommend not taking up space with the new-items list. It will only distract from the user's task, and take up valuable screen space.

In fact, does the reminder about urgent items need to exist on the subsequent pages at all? If you can only get to page 2 by going through page 1, then you know the user has already seen the new-items list and is ignoring it for now - so you might as well use all the screen space for the normal listing.