Navigation

This is the braintrust, so I'd like to see your opinions...

Which would you consider "best practice"?

1) Place the navigation to flow before the content.
2) Place the navigation to flow after the content.
3) Place the navigation to flow before the content but add a link "Skip to
content" before the navigation.
4) Place the navigation to flow after the content but add a link "Skip to
site navigation" before the content.
5) Other.

As of now, I'd choose 4, but my opinion is malleable.

Quoth the raven Neal:

This is the braintrust, so I'd like to see your opinions...

Which would you consider "best practice"?

1) Place the navigation to flow before the content.
2) Place the navigation to flow after the content.
3) Place the navigation to flow before the content but add a link "Skip
to content" before the navigation.
4) Place the navigation to flow after the content but add a link "Skip
to site navigation" before the content.
5) Other.

As of now, I'd choose 4, but my opinion is malleable.

I do your 4 as well. Seems to fit best with text browsers and screen
readers.

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

On Sun, 12 Sep 2004 23:48:23 -0400, Neal wrote:

3) Place the navigation to flow before the content but add a link..
....
As of now, I'd choose 4, but my opinion is malleable.

As of now, my opinion may be inconsequential.

#3 is what I would design for *now*, if I had
time to rework my sites*. I attempted it
earlier but failed to produce a result that
both worked as I wanted for modern browsers,
and degraded gracefully for older ones.

At the moment I am still stuck in the same
old 'tables' for the outer page layout, though
I have resisted using tables for layout beyond
that (nav are lists, all content has tables only
for tabular data)

[ * I solved most of the problems with my
initial attempts from reading the forums,
it's just a matter of getting the time to
implement and test it. ]

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.PhySci.org/ Open-source software suite
http://www.PhySci.org/codes/ Web & IT Help
http://www.1point1C.org/ Science & Technology

Neal <neal413 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

Which would you consider "best practice"?

1) Place the navigation to flow before the content.
2) Place the navigation to flow after the content.
3) Place the navigation to flow before the content but add a link
"Skip to content" before the navigation.
4) Place the navigation to flow after the content but add a link
"Skip to site navigation" before the content.
5) Other.

5) Do not pollute your pages with "navigation". Less is more. When you
reduce "navigation" to one link, pointing to the main page, which
contains a main table of content (and link to full index, or "site map",
and a search form, and whatever you wish and can set up), it becomes
fairly immaterial where you put it. You could well put it at the start
_and_ at the end (e.g., making a company logo at the start a link, and
putting a more explicit verbal link at the end).

As of now, I'd choose 4, but my opinion is malleable.

Whenever you feel tempted, or even forced, to use an imperative verb form
in a link text, you have not been thinking in hypertext terms. Links are
relations, not commands.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

In message <opsd8x6xiw6v6656 (AT) news (DOT) individual.net>, Neal
<neal413 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> writes

This is the braintrust, so I'd like to see your opinions...

Which would you consider "best practice"?

1) Place the navigation to flow before the content.
2) Place the navigation to flow after the content.
3) Place the navigation to flow before the content but add a link "Skip
to content" before the navigation.
4) Place the navigation to flow after the content but add a link "Skip
to site navigation" before the content.
5) Other.

As of now, I'd choose 4, but my opinion is malleable.

#3 or #4

Either will work OK, although #3 is the usual one, and hence the one
expected.

regards.
--
Jake

Quoth the raven jake:

#3 or #4

Either will work OK, although #3 is the usual one, and hence the
one expected.

#3 is the "usual one" because many authors aren't aware they can place
things on the page with CSS positioning that don't "match" the linear
layout of the code.

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

In article <opsd8x6xiw6v6656 (AT) news (DOT) individual.net>, neal413 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
enlightened us with...

This is the braintrust, so I'd like to see your opinions...

Which would you consider "best practice"?

1) Place the navigation to flow before the content.
2) Place the navigation to flow after the content.
3) Place the navigation to flow before the content but add a link "Skip to
content" before the navigation.
4) Place the navigation to flow after the content but add a link "Skip to
site navigation" before the content.
5) Other.

As a user who surfs a lot...

<opinion>
#1, #3, or #5: on the left.
I personally prefer links on the top or left for quicker navigation. If you
have a large amount of links, on the left of the content means you don't need
a "skip to content" link.
And as much as I respect Jukka, if you did what he suggests, I would be
irritated beyond belief.
</opinion>

--
--
~kaeli~
Local Area Network in Australia:... the LAN down under.
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/wildAtHeart
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/kaelisSpace

On Mon, 13 Sep 2004 08:18:04 -0500, kaeli <tiny_one (AT) NOSPAM (DOT) comcast.net>
wrote:

In article <opsd8x6xiw6v6656 (AT) news (DOT) individual.net>, neal413 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
enlightened us with...
Which would you consider "best practice"?

#1, #3, or #5: on the left.

I think you misunderstood. By "in the flow" I mean as the page is rendered
without any style or positioning. So nothing's on the left of anything.

On Mon, 13 Sep 2004 05:50:40 +0000 (UTC), Jukka K. Korpela
<jkorpela (AT) cs (DOT) tut.fi> wrote:

Neal <neal413 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:
4) Place the navigation to flow after the content but add a link
"Skip to site navigation" before the content.
Whenever you feel tempted, or even forced, to use an imperative verb form
in a link text, you have not been thinking in hypertext terms. Links are
relations, not commands.

"Skip to <a ...>Site Navigation</a>" would of course be preferable. I just
used explabnatory language, not actual linking text.

Neal <neal413 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

Which would you consider "best practice"?

1) Place the navigation to flow before the content.

If it's lightweight, yes. For example, a few breadcrumb links tell the user
where he is within your site, and provide quick access to site and subsite
navigation pages that have content related to the current page.

2) Place the navigation to flow after the content.

This is a great place for "see also" links that direct to user to
additional resources, once they've read the current document.

3) Place the navigation to flow before the content but add a link "Skip to
content" before the navigation.
4) Place the navigation to flow after the content but add a link "Skip to
site navigation" before the content.

I'm tired of explaining to people what these links mean. They seem to
confuse people, rather than help them, and that includes the people with
accessibility needs who supposedly benefit from them.
--
Darin McGrew, mcgrew (AT) stanfordalumni (DOT) org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, darin (AT) htmlhelp (DOT) com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"I used to do lots of dumb things, but I turned my life around 360 degrees!"