As I sort through recipes on Epicurious.com for the millionth time, trying to sort out a delicious, seasonal meal for a friend’s birthday celebration (I’m on my laptop, while watching the World Series, and am trying to keep my eyes on the game, not on my screen) I’m struck by what I think is a novel idea.

First, the problem: In short, it takes me too long to scroll through the recipes in the search result list, then Cmd (or Ctrl on a PC)+click on the titles to open each one I’m interested in in a new tab, then find the tiny page number or next link to take me to the next page of results (I’m facing 22 pages of fall squash dishes right now). It’s getting tedious and frustrating, it’s taking my eyes away from the game (it’s a multi-tasking world), and it’s causing me to want to spend less time on the site–curses, Epicurious interface designers!

38 pages of results and tiny numbers to click to move forward? Not okay. I propose a better way.

38 pages of results and tiny numbers to click to move forward? Not okay. I propose a better way.

So here’s my idea. For any site on which paginating through lists is a common activity: set up a keystroke shortcut that allows me to simply use my left or right arrow keys to go to the next page in the list. We’re not using the arrow keys for anything else in that context, right? Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of pop-up layer photo galleries that let me flip through pictures using my left and right arrow keys. Why not adapt the functionality for the pagination situation? As further support, think of the extensive keyboard shortcuts that Gmail is now offering. Somebody call Windows 3.0–keyboard shortcuts are coming back!

Developers: what are some methods for making that happen (cross-browser, of course)?

Everyone: what other sites would benefit from a pagination intervention?