10 results per page considered harmful

Websites the world over, please allow me to have more than 10 results per page! Except for the degenerate case of 10 or fewer items, I think 10-per-page is pretty much the worst case for usability. There are 2 extreme options for presenting a large list, each have their own obvious merrits: A) no vertical scrolling, a screen full is shown at a time and more results are revealed only by paging left and right, and B) no paging, all results on a one, perhaps super-long, page.

10-per-page is a compromise between A and B that has the worst of each and putting you equally in two modes at once. It necessitates many many page flips left & right, like A, but throws out its single benefit of being able to view each page all at once. It forces me scroll up and down, like B, but doesn’t let me stay in that mode long enough to gain its advantage. For many screen sizes, 10-per-page results in an amount of vertical scrolling that perfectly maximizes annoyance, like having to bob up and down. It’s as efficient as reading a book where every page has a fold out flap. There’s a reason why dictionaries aren’t pop-up books.

The one thing that’s reasonable with 10-per-page is that it results in bearable page load times, when on dialup. Are we still designing for 1998′s lowest common demoniator? Yes, I believe google is to blame.

Some better solutions: a gradually revealed infinitely scrolling page – like the last twitter redesign, a large number of results per page – 100 is pretty good, a logical grouping of results per page – a day’s or week’s worth or something say, which at least this reveals some rationalle for combining paging and scrolling besides driving the user mad.

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