Infinite scroll often make it nearly impossible to click on the site's privacy policy or terms of service in the page footer without going into dev tools. Whenever I come across that issue I wonder whether it's a feature or a bug.
Yes, they also have the problem that they (are usually implemented in such a way that they) break the back button[1] and make it so you can't easily jump to a well-defined block of the results you know you haven't seen.
I also see them frequently have a bug where they'll just keep cycling through the same first page-equivalent of results.
[1] If you click a result and then hit back, it usually just reloads the page and starts you from the beginning. I think the function of a back button changed at some point. It used to be that "back" was always instant and took you to the exact state of the page before you clicked a link. Now, there's a huge lag on all but the most minimal sites (like HN) and some reload of something gets triggered.
Not to mention the total lack of affordances for "I want to see this something from 2 years ago" in most implementations. Usually even the back end works on a "last ID" cursor system, so even savvy users can't jump back. Holding the end key for 10 minutes is not fun.
Yeah, I (perhaps because of masochism) click on links to Quora answers I see in my email digest, and it will me to the answer within an infiniscroll page. If I follow any link and click back ... the answer is gone. I have to go back to my email again and get it from there if I want to see it again.
It almost seems like, beyond a very low threshold, UX gets worse as you throw more engineers at it.
> Yeah, I (perhaps because of masochism) click on links to Quora answers I see in my email digest
Hey, it's better than clicking through the Medium digest and getting your 10th consecutive "you can use a switch statement instead of a bunch of if statements" article written by someone in week 2 of their bootcamp. :(
I've tried to get to a contact link in the footer and been hindered by infinite scrolling on more than one occasion. I wouldn't say it happens a lot, but when it does it's frustrating.
