Adapting infinite-scroll with the user experience in mind

In a world where technology advances, it is important that the human-computer interface follows in the same pace, to maximize the user experience. This means that when the machines become more powerful and the services become more comprehensive, it is important that they still are adapted to the users. In the web browsing world, a concept called infinite-scroll has become popular when trying to maximise the user experience. This technique uses JavaScript to dynamically load more content to a webpage whilst the user is scrolling without ever reloading the page, to achieve a more fluid experience. This technique is used widely in social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter among others. However, this technique have been used very rarely on other types of websites. Why this could be the case and how infinite-scroll performs on an intranet will be described in this report. A quantitative study on how the user behaviour differs between a website with pagination and infinite-scroll has been conducted and analysed by gathering statistics through Google Analytics about how users interacts with the website in question. The study indicates that infinite-scroll can be useful on an intranet when adapted according to usability guidelines.