IT:AD:Patterns:Page Number Isn't A Search Criteria Strategy
Summary
The following – although common – makes absolutely no sense:
The search criteria is "John Smith, Page 3, row 2".
Stop Using Paging to render records!
It's a totally outdated design strategy required at the time as a work around to physical limitiations of the 80's.
It's easy to do better!
Either refine the search with additional data (“John Smith, Born in 1968”) to find it quicker, or if you're not sure break it down into two steps
- AutoComplete/Hint any way you can to improve the quality of the search criteria being entered
- Return the results in an Infinite Scroll (ie, no paging, just scroll down, and the client automatically fetches the next 20 rows or so) until the user either find the record they are looking for, or tries another search using additional criteria to filter the list down to a more manageable size on the next request.