Pagination (UI)
Splitting a long list across pages with controls to move between them — the alternative to infinite scroll and load-more.
Pagination gives people three things the alternatives cannot: a sense of how much exists, a way to return to a specific position, and a reachable footer. For work — records, orders, tickets, search results — those matter more than the smoothness of an endless feed. Infinite scroll suits browsing where no individual item needs to be found again; load-more sits between the two and keeps the footer reachable.
The page number belongs in the URL, alongside sort and filter state, so a link goes where the sender is looking. Page size should be adjustable and remembered, because someone scanning a hundred rows and someone reading ten want different things. And when a list is short enough to fit on one page, the pagination bar should not render at all.
In practice
An ecommerce catalogue moved from pagination to infinite scroll. Product views per session rose 12%, and conversions fell 6%. Users could not return to an item they had scrolled past, and the footer holding delivery and returns information became unreachable. Reverting to load-more kept most of the browsing gain without the losses.
Where teams get it wrong
- Page number missing from the URL, so a shared link opens page one.
- Infinite scroll on a list people need to come back to a specific item in.
- Infinite scroll that makes the footer unreachable.
- No total count, so nobody knows whether this is 3 pages or 300.
- Page size that resets on every navigation.
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Related terms
All terms- Data TableA grid of rows and columns for scanning, comparing and acting on records — the screen most B2B users spend their day inside.
- Filter (UI)Controls that narrow a set of records — and the much harder job of keeping what was narrowed visible.
- Search (UI)The search control and the results behind it — where people go when they know what they want and cannot find it.
- Empty StateWhat a screen shows when it has no content yet — the first screen every new account sees, and usually the last one anybody designs.