How Much Do You Know About Modern Website Scrolling Techniques?

There was a time when scrolling through websites was a mundane affair that was mostly limited to moving the page vertically or horizontally across the viewport. At some point, HTML frames came along to change things up a bit; by the time the iPhone and mobile browsing came of age in 2007, scrolling started to evolve into four major categories and a few variations.

Among the all the functionalities of a website, scrolling is one of the most common. Here are the four main categories in use today:

Long and Linear Scrolling

The idea behind this traditional form of scrolling as a user interface concept is not as old as the web itself. There have been scroll bars with page number inputs for decades. However, for the most part, scrolling in a linear fashion was something you learned to do when you first got your hands on a computer.

Infinite or Endless Scrolling

On websites that offer very large amounts of content, users have become accustomed to endless scroll bars that continue to load more content until it fills the whole screen. Infinite scroll is a relatively new idea that has changed the way users consume content online. On web apps such as Twitter, endless scrolling has sparked the negative online behavior known as "doom scrolling."

Parallax Scrolling

In the past, parallax scrolling consisted of a single element, such as the entire body background, that has a slightly different background-color than the element below it. This creates a sort of illusion, causing the viewer's brain to create a sense of depth in the page. Today, this method is much more widely used. Today, many websites are built with a parallax effect with multiple objects and elements. Users may never notice the page's true depth. Within this scrolling technique, we find the Magic Carpet or Interscrolling scripts, which are often used to sneak an advertisement behind the main content.

Fixed Linear Scrolling

This is pretty much a long vertical scrolling configuration that maintains some of the page content static while the rest moves in the direction of the scroll. This popular type of scrolling got its start in the HTML era of web page frames. For more information click here https://v.redd.it/pdbdtqb4idu71.