What are pros and cons of this technique (see Softfolio for an example). Two things I personally thought of are as follows:
What else can you think of? And what do you personally think of this approach in general. Would you use this in you projects?
I think it is "neat" but requires more visual clues as to what is going on... and in many circumstances isn't what the user wants.
Personally I HATE that example. It makes the site much less usable than if the results were paged.
You're right too, when you hit back, you will have to page by scrolling down again, and while page down works it doesnt work well - I cant remember how many page downs i pressed to get to the site, secondly, what if the ordering changes the number of scrolls would differ anyway - I know paging would too, however its much easier to scan a few pages than keep scrolling.
Lastly, even though I am a developer I scrolled down, and the first few times I actually thought maybe if i leave it long enough it will download all the images/samples...then scrolled down and again the same thing happened AAAAAARG!
I would NEVER use this approach in projects.
I wouldn't use infinite scroll on search results. But it's really nice for casual browsing, or in a random output situation such as psychological test where it's important that items not show up in a constant order. Something like a market preference survey skews towards early choices, so randomizing the order of options is essential.
Where it gets frustrating is when the user leaves a page via a link and then wants to come back. For a browsing situation, I'd probably address that with overlays rather than linking away.
I agree this is a mess. If there is a finite list, there should be some kind of pagination mechanism that lets you know where you are.
Alternatively, or in addition, add a filtering mechanism so you can weed out the stuff you don't want to see.
SO provides a handy example of how to do it right.
I personally find it gimicky and quite annoying. It diverges from standard navigation techniques that users are used to (such as pagination) and breaks navigating back, which is very annoying (you can't get back to a result without starting again). On top of that it doesn't conform to accessibility guidelines as it is totally reliant on JavaScript to work (which goes against the "progressive enhancement" theory of the modern web). This also has SEO implications as I doubt content "beyond the fold" would be indexed, unless it was linked to directly from elsewhere.
I can see a few limited circumstances where this might be OK, such as a very long text page, but personally I doubt I'd use it in the current form. Kind of reminds me of those Flash sites that are all style and no substance and end up annoying the user rather than enhancing their experience.
When results are served randomly, it's a great idea. People are asking, "How do I get back to where I was?". Well, you don't. The results are random, so when you return to page six, you won't be seeing what you did last time.
If you think about it, paging Sortfolio would be a bad idea, because it would imply to its users that the order of its listings are fixed, as many of you have made the mistake of assuming.
For those asking, "How can I return to a result I liked?", well, you click the 'Save to my favorites' link. As for, "How can I share a result with a friend?", you click on the result and grab its URL. Kinda simple really.
I'm not saying this infinity-scrolling business is the way to do it, I'm just saying that some of you guys are unfairly discrediting Sortfolio for usability problems which the site—given its random nature—really needn't concern itself with.
Actually, It doesn't matter whether we (designers/developers) like it or not. The only thing that matters is the users perception of this. If the user finds it useful, well, then the solution is OK. If the user gets confused and can't accomplish the primary task, then redesign...