In defense of the web page footer

I just discovered Nautilus, http://m.nautil.us/, an online science magazine that covers one topic per month.  Simple, but it took me far too long to figure out that last sentence.  The “About” link in Nautilus’s footer led to the answers, but some links just don’t want to be clicked…

Nautilus is one of many sites that loads content as you scroll.  Scroll past this month’s articles and you get last month’s.  But the same was true when I zipped to the bottom looking for the elusive About page.  Just as I was poised to activate the anchor— boom.  More stories had loaded, and I was no longer at the bottom of the page.

I’m not just picking on Nautilus.  Other sites (no, of course I can’t remember which ) do the same.  To every webmaster autoloading content, I ask — beg — please keep your footers usable!

For as long as I’ve been using a web browser, the footer has been the home of About, Legal, Contact, and the other pages you don’t miss until they’re gone. They may be the ugly stepchildren of the web world, but they shouldn’t be reserved for Tantalus. Let us click those links! If the scroll distance is 90% of the way down the page, don’t load more!

I like autoloaders — most of the time. All I ask is that the autoloader not stop me from using the rest of the very same page! Content is only king once you can read it.