Alan Cooper

to minimize mouse movement

An effective faceted search mechanism should provide users some visibility into the characteristics of the set of items they’re searching, as well as give them ideas about how to make the result set small enough to efficiently find the desired item.

Because this responsiveness narrows content areas on smaller screens, it’s much more challenging to try to control what fits on the screen or goes above the fold.

With web experiences, on the other hand, critical information and functions often must be accessed through scrolling. Web designers have long been concerned about the “fold”—the vertical position on the page below which content isn’t visible upon page load.

The result of all this is that one of the most important aspects of successful web design is to engage the user to progress through content or functionality as he or she scrolls down a page. This doesn’t apply only to editorial-type content, but also to more highly interactive capabilities. One example is the popular “parallax” effect, in which different onscreen elements respond to the user’s scrolling at different speeds.

One method is to create an effective visual rhythm through the use of white space and a strong typography system. You also should be generous with font and control sizes to improve usability for touch users and to improve scanability when the user scrolls.

The header almost always includes a brand element like a logotype, and some persistent navigation items, including the primary navigation (discussed earlier). The header is also commonly the place where a website or application tells the user whether he or she is signed in. Finally, the search function often resides in the header.

Categorized suggestions is yet another method of speeding the user to relevant results when a search term is applicable across many different categories or domains. This is achieved by the system offering a list of suggestions, each of which scopes the search to a particular category.

Although each of them may have scrolling content, it is almost always good design in a native application to have key functions persistently available.

Nevertheless, there’s a real opportunity to create more seamless engaging interactions by bringing together content and interactive elements that traditionally have been broken into numerous pages and put them into a longer, scrollable page.