The article mentions that infinite scroll is "prominent among popular Tumblr themes, Pinterest, and of course, at Facebook and Twitter". All of these are content consumption sites, and for at least Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter, clicking on an item in the list opens it in-page -- for Pinterest and Facebook, it's in a modal box; for Twitter, it's expanded within the stream. The content you're browsing is all there; there's no problem with clicking on an item in the list to get a more detailed view.
At Etsy, introducing infinite scroll resulted in "fewer clicks on the results and fewer items 'favorited' from the infinite results page". On an Etsy search results page [1], clicking on an item bounces you to another page. And on sites with "infinite scroll", this is typically a very uncomfortable experience, particularly when trying to get back. Depending on the implementation, you're wind up back at the beginning of the result set; even if you don't, it's usually a fairly bumpy ride, with the time taken for the page to reload its data and the jumps in scrolling as everything loads in. Even if it technically works, the kind of sensation this brings about is enough to discourage someone from actually clicking through. There's an negative association that develops with clicking on these items, the foreboding feeling that you'll end up losing your place, such that one tries to do so as little as possible -- in line with what was observed from the Etsy experiment.
On the Etsy search page, you can indeed "favorite" items without going into the item's actual page. But that's not something one is likely to do based on a tiny little thumbnail -- one would usually first click through, see a bigger picture, and possibly read the description below. It doesn't help that, on the results page, the "favorite" button is but a tiny little icon, that only appears if you directly mouse over the thumbnail; meanwhile, on an actual item page, it's right there under "Add to Cart" [2]. Perhaps users weren't even aware that you could do this from the search page.
With a site like Etsy, where lists are a means to an end -- a way to get to information on other pages -- it's no surprise that infinite scroll performs quite poorly, as opposed to content consumption sites, where browsing is a self-contained experience of its own.
(As an aside, it's fairly silly to compare infinite scroll with Google's Instant Search. Instant is well-liked because it gets you to your search results faster; this being Google, the user isn't there to hang around and enjoy the scenery, but to get to the information they're looking for as quickly as possible. And Google's results pages themselves still use pagination, despite their experimenting with infinite scrolling back in 2011 [3] -- a change that, quite clearly, didn't make the cut.)
At Etsy, introducing infinite scroll resulted in "fewer clicks on the results and fewer items 'favorited' from the infinite results page". On an Etsy search results page [1], clicking on an item bounces you to another page. And on sites with "infinite scroll", this is typically a very uncomfortable experience, particularly when trying to get back. Depending on the implementation, you're wind up back at the beginning of the result set; even if you don't, it's usually a fairly bumpy ride, with the time taken for the page to reload its data and the jumps in scrolling as everything loads in. Even if it technically works, the kind of sensation this brings about is enough to discourage someone from actually clicking through. There's an negative association that develops with clicking on these items, the foreboding feeling that you'll end up losing your place, such that one tries to do so as little as possible -- in line with what was observed from the Etsy experiment.
On the Etsy search page, you can indeed "favorite" items without going into the item's actual page. But that's not something one is likely to do based on a tiny little thumbnail -- one would usually first click through, see a bigger picture, and possibly read the description below. It doesn't help that, on the results page, the "favorite" button is but a tiny little icon, that only appears if you directly mouse over the thumbnail; meanwhile, on an actual item page, it's right there under "Add to Cart" [2]. Perhaps users weren't even aware that you could do this from the search page.
With a site like Etsy, where lists are a means to an end -- a way to get to information on other pages -- it's no surprise that infinite scroll performs quite poorly, as opposed to content consumption sites, where browsing is a self-contained experience of its own.
(As an aside, it's fairly silly to compare infinite scroll with Google's Instant Search. Instant is well-liked because it gets you to your search results faster; this being Google, the user isn't there to hang around and enjoy the scenery, but to get to the information they're looking for as quickly as possible. And Google's results pages themselves still use pagination, despite their experimenting with infinite scrolling back in 2011 [3] -- a change that, quite clearly, didn't make the cut.)
[1] http://www.etsy.com/search?q=test&view_type=gallery&...
[2] http://www.etsy.com/listing/65114535/12-boracilicate-glass-t...
[3] http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2103479/Google-Experime...