Explicit load keeps control and the footer reachable
Aliases: load more control · gated append
What it is
Load more is an explicit button at the end of the current batch: the next batch appends only after a person presses it. It hands “whether to continue” back to the user, and leaves a real document end between clicks, so a footer can enter the viewport. The difference from automatic infinite append is not visual style, it is whether append has a latch. It also differs from pagination: it does not give a coordinate called page n, only a decision called “another batch”.
Why it happens
Automatic append treats approaching the bottom as consent to continue; an explicit button makes consent a separate act. Until it is pressed, the list is a finite document, the scrollbar has a stop, and the footer, legal links, and “no more” can sit after the button and be seen. Someone can finish this batch and leave without competing for attention with a batch that arrives on its own. The sense of control comes from the latch, not from the label: a control that looks like a button but fires when it merely scrolls into view is a fake latch.
Because it does not bother with coordinates, it also does not pretend “you are on page n”. What it keeps is the ability to stop, and reachability of whatever sits at the end. For medium catalogues that sometimes need a finished batch, sometimes the footer, and do not want to maintain page numbers, that trade is sound. The latch has a side effect: continuing is felt as a click, so people ask “do I still want this” sooner — an advantage for search and comparison, a loss for feeds that live on extended dwell, and the effect has to be counted when choosing.
Where it stops holding
When batches are tiny and almost every view needs a press, the explicit latch becomes labour, and people will prefer something that advances on its own. Live streams (chat, a ticker) cannot wait for approval of the next line. For assistive tech the control must be a real button, and after append focus must land somewhere sensible (start of the new content, or the button); otherwise control exists only for the pointer. If a press yields nothing more and the button remains, control turns into a lie.
Applying it
- Make the next batch require activation. Do not let scrolling into view replace the click. Before a press, it must be possible to scroll past the list to the footer or to “all loaded”.
- While a load runs, disable the button and say it is loading. If another batch remains, the button sits at the new end; if not, replace it with an explicit end.
- After append, do not dump focus at the top of the document; keyboard users at least need to know where the new content starts.
- How to check: without pressing the button, scroll only — the footer or end copy must be reachable. Press once — only one batch should be added, and the new end still reachable. Any “scroll fast enough and it loads itself” has removed the latch.