Tweet

Why We Choose the 'View More' Button Instead of Pagination

Guest post by: John Cooney

Article Overview: We changed the pagination method because we feel the "View More" button provides a much better user experience.

Why We Choose the 'View More' Button Instead of Pagination

We changed the pagination method because we feel the "View More" button provides a much better user experience.

Problems with pagination: 1. Very few users ever use pagination links - while every study is dependent on its own unique context, I generally see numbers around 5%. Even if users are aware there are more results, most simply assume that if what they want isn't among the first few results, they should try elsewhere (or alter their search parameters).

2. Pagination links require the entire page to reload before offering the next set of choices.

3. Pagination links generally offer the user a confusing series of choices: "<< 1 2 3 >>". Do I want to see the next page, page 2, or skip ahead to page 3? And how many pages are there, exactly?

4. Most pagination links have a "View All" button for users that want to see everything on the page at once; with a lot of results (and often you can't control the results, for instance if someone searches for something very common), load time suffers and the page can easily break.

5. Pagination links have the conflicting visual problem of both adding to clutter (generally need to go at the top and bottom of the page; individual pagination elements consist of many different links) and being hard-to-find (generally hang out on the far right and can easily get mixed in with other page elements).

Advantages to the "View More" button

1. Uses AJAX to quickly load additional results. The rest of the page stays in place.

2. Offers a single, unambiguous choice.

3. Allows for a user to view all choices at once, without straining the page load; simply requires clicking the button multiple times (if you are concerned about forcing the user to click the button ten times, ask yourself why the user wishes to see 100+ options all at once; you probably have a different usability issue).

4. Is non-visually intrusive (single button at the bottom of the page) that is easy to find (when the user gets to the end of the list, the button is the next thing they see). Users who are only interesting in the first few results (most of them) will never see the button. (By the way, this is a good thing - ideally, the user only sees functionality they want, at the moment they want it.)

Caveats and warnings (my favorite part)

1. Nothing is ever a universal solution and there are instances where pagination works better. For example, when displaying a Google Map (and results can't stretch down the page).

2. Pagination allows users to link to a specific set of results ("Here's page three of my results!") and the "View More" button does not. But this is not a likely user action (if your user needs to send page 3 of her results to a friend, you may be doing something else wrong).

3. "View More" buttons should only be used in situations where the header makes it clear how many results/elements there are on the page ("804 Restaurants"). Don't be like 37 Signals and leave your users guessing when they are going to run out of results. (But dynamic counters that update on each click of the "View More" button are probably overkill; I don't need to know exactly how many more results there are, or where I am in the list - a general idea is usually more than fine.)

Feedback

In the very few tests we've with done with the "View More" button, people have had no problem with it. But most ignore it - as expected. (And I don't think I have ever seen a person click on a pagination link in a user test.) Not sure about old versus young, but I would expect less savvy people to have an easier time with the "View More" button because it is easy to find and unambiguous (usually you have to be expecting the pagination links to know how to use them).

Related Articles
  How to Install the Facebook Like Button On Every Page of Your Site
  PowerPoint for Educators: How to Make Multiple-choice Quizzes with PowerPoint via VBA
  Ways to Promote Your Business on Facebook
  Google’s +1 Button Influences Search Engine Optimsiation
  Useful Internet Marketing Tools On The Cheap: AddThis
  Creating Flash banner with iSpring
  Are You Taking Your Site Visitors Forward?
  ••••••>File Naming Conventions for Top SEO
  The Most Important Button on Your Phone
  Personal Responsibility: The Natural Event
  How to Forward Email
  How To Improve Your CTA (Call To Action)
  Increase Profit and Save Time with this Simple Business Tool
  Hot Buttons Drive Joint Ventures
  10 Organisational predictions for 2010
  ••••••>SEO Tip of the Day: Keywords Are a Webmaster’s Best Friend for top SEO
  Lovely Layouts and Ripping Reports
  Will You Choose to "Wake Up!" to Your Life?
  One More Great Day
  ••••••>Get Me On Top SEO Tip of the day: Using Press Releases and Notifications to Up Page Rankings and create Backlinks

Article Tags: page layout, pagination, site buttons, usability
Referred by: http://www.orbitmedia.com



Related Forum Posts
Re: Subscribe to Your Category - Hi guys - since I'm interested in posts from every category here's what I do: When you log into the forums, on the home page at the top you'll see: View unanswered posts • View unread posts • View new posts • View active topics I just click through the "View unread posts" so I'm sure not to miss anything new.
How To Add A Paypal Button To Blogger - Hi Brendan, The blog is looking good. If possible, try to post something on it every day. You can vary the length of the posts, just something short when time is tight. There are two parts to getting the Paypal code on your site. First is getting the Paypal code! Second is getting it on your site! HOW TO GET YOUR PAYPAL CODE 1. Log in to Paypal 2. Click Merchant Services 3. Find the Key Features box on the right and click Donations. 4. Donations Page 1: Fill in the fields with your Donation name and a ref no. (the latter is not necessary). Choose a "Donate" button - I suggest the one with the pic of the credit cards beneath. It is up to you whether you "encrypt" or not. As you do not have a website there is no need to go to "Donations Page 2" for "more options", so you can just click "Create Button Now". 5. On the new page, click "Select All" for the "HTML Code for Websites" box and copy and paste the code to your blog. HOW TO GET YOUR PAYPAL DONATION BUTTON ON BLOGGER 1. Go to your Blogger.com dashboard. 2. Click the "Layout" tab. 3. Click "Add A Gadget" 4. Scroll down to HTML/JavaScript and click the + sign. 5. A small screen will pop up and you can PASTE your Paypal Donation Button code there and add a title if you wish. 6. Click SAVE on the small screen. 7. Now, back on the main screen you can preview and then SAVE. If all has gone well, you should now have a Paypal Donation button on your blog. === Best wishes, David H
personal view - My personal view on the social networking scene is I do not believe it to be in our human nature to live globally. If that where the case we would not be working continually to-wards this goal. It would JUST BE to begin with from the beginning. From what I can tell we are creating a new generation of people that are intolerant of the least amount of thinking involved in any application that hits the web. The TWO Button rule seems to apply to almost everything we do today. Have you taken good look around at the education system in this country? Social networking is perhaps the worst thing to end up on the internet. I do not believe the internet was intended to be used as such. All the Best
Re: Autoresponder v Blog Feed Subscriptions... - They get updates by email only. Your question prompted me to check out the Feedburner email subscription page and I noticed down the bottom that you CAN view the email addresses of your subscribers. Feedburner.google.com => Publicize ==> email Subscriptions: scroll down to the bottom and click "View Subscriber Details". You can also modify the first email notification that goes out, include a link to a logo for branding purposes and set the time of day you want the updates to go out. Pretty neat! DH
Re: Do bigger monitors save time? - Hi Kevin, Thanks for the welcome! I would agree that two 17's would work well but really, any size would work. I'd be careful in going after the larger monitors that are traditional heights but are really wide, unless you have the desk space for it. Choose your monitors carefully as well to ensure that you try to find ones that have a small frame outside of the actual monitor screen. That way, when you put them together, the screens look a little more uniform. Last tip for either multiple monitors or one large one... Speed your mouse motion up. If you don't, you'll spend forever scrolling from one screen to another or across a larger screen. It'll take a bit to get used to at first but after a few days, using a mouse with regular motion will seem painstakingly slow!


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Time management for DIY PR

Adjusting Your World

The five pillars of internet marketing strategy

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.