Load more

Load more sits between numbered pages and infinite scroll. Like infinite scroll it appends rather than replaces, so the reader never loses the items they were comparing. Unlike infinite scroll it waits to be asked, which is what keeps the list finite: the page ends, the footer is reachable, and the reader can tell how far they have come.

The button is only half the pattern. The other half is the count beside it, because a batch that arrives without saying “24 of 312” leaves the reader with no way to judge whether pressing again is worth it. Say how many are loaded and how many exist, and change the button when there is nothing left rather than letting it keep offering more of nothing.

Three details separate a good implementation from a frustrating one. Focus should stay somewhere sensible after the batch lands, usually on the button itself, so a keyboard reader is not thrown to the top. The button should say it is working while the request is in flight, since a silent button invites a second press. And the appended items should be announced, or at least be reachable, without a scroll jump: the pattern’s whole promise is that nothing the reader was already looking at moves.

Reach for it when the list is browsed rather than searched, when the reader may plausibly want everything, and when deep linking to page seven does not matter. Where the reader is looking for one specific row and needs a stable address for it, numbered pagination is still the better answer.