Pagination is icky on most sites. For some, it makes sense as a way to segment content into consumable chunks, while for others it’s implemented so poorly that it’s a giant problem. For instance, the new Digg design did away with the traditional pagination and instead adopted a load on click system, much like Tumblr. It drives me absolutely crazy. When you click it opens the next set of listings. When you click on a story, then read it, and then click a back button it closes all the subsequently opened pages and starts you back at the top again. It’s the worst.
So instead of navigating paginated pages, why not just have them open as you scroll to the end of the page? That’s what the AutoPaterize plugin for Safari attempts to accomplish. It’s far from bulletproof, but it certainly goes a long way in solving the problem—scroll to the end of some content, have the site open new content immediately. The best example I can think of for checking out how AutoPagerize works is the Twitter site. The next time you’re looking at your followers list pay attention to how many times you have to load a new page to see new followers. AutoPagerize eliminates the clicking, and automatically loads the rest of the content when you get to it.
It saves a lot of time. You should check it out.
