Website Design – Sites That Scroll Part 2

This website design article follows on from Sites that Scroll Part 1. Previously, we mentioned the advantages of infinite scrolling and the kind of content you need to feature on your website design. Now we’re going to discuss navigation.

Navigation is the most obvious drawback of many scrolling websites. In fact, it’s this issue that makes infinite scrolling unsuitable for readers who are in a hurry to find specific info. But you can reduce the difficulties for your readers with the following recommendations:

1. Feature a floating “top” button.
   This button lets the reader get back to very first part of the page. It can be very tedious to scroll back up to the very top after you’ve spent a great deal of time scrolling down. Lots of scrolling websites offer very engaging content, so they’re often effective time-wasters (and the bane of workplaces everywhere). Many scrolling website designs also offer the newest content at the very top. So when the reader wants to see the newest stuff after hours of scrolling down, they can just press this “top” button to get there.
2. Put up a sticky navigation menu.
   You may have different categories and webpages for your content. So how do your readers get from one webpage to another? They can do that more easily with a constantly visible navigation menu at the top.It also acts as advertisement for your website. The sticky menu is a constant reminder that there’s more to your website design than the page the reader is looking over.
3. You can also use “jump to” features.
   These are a series of links that lead to different locations on your infinitely scrolling web page. The reader can click on a specific link to find a particular section.This works very well with fan fiction websites where the stories are featured in full in scrolling pages. The reader can jump to any chapter they want while they read the story.This works for comprehensive tutorials as well. You can go back to any part of the tutorial when you need some info to understand another chapter explanation.
4. Ensure that the back button works correctly.
   It’s great when you have links on your webpage so that your readers can more easily reach another page on your website. The thing is, when they click the back button, readers expect to be back where they were on the previous page.The problem with some website design is that sometimes when this happens, the reader goes back to the very top of the page where they were before. If they’ve spent a long time scrolling down that page, then it can get very tedious trying to find where they were before.So what you need is a back button that lets readers go back to the very spot they left before they went to another page on your website design.

Take note of these recommendations, and there’s a good chance that you can enjoy the benefits of infinite scrolling for your website design while also avoiding the possible drawbacks.