Opinions on placement of navigational items

A

Adrienne Boswell

Seems to me I answered a post about this... but I need to convince my
boss of some things, so I am coming to alt.html.

My idea:
<h2>Accessories Stores in Glendale</h2>
<div class="youarehere">You are here - Home > Categories >
Stores/Accessories</div>
<table>
<caption><span class="results">There are 10 products and 100
merchants</span><span class="pagination">Page 1 2 3 4
Next</span></caption>
.....
</table>

Her idea:
<h2>Accessories Stores in Glendale</h2>
<div class="results">There are 10 products and 100 merchants</div>
<div class="tableheader"><div class="youarehere">You are here - Home >
Categories > Stores/Accessories</div><div class="pagination">Page 1 2 3
4 Next</div></div>

Opinions? Which makes more sense?
 
M

Mike Massonnet

Le Tue, 25 Jul 2006 09:49:09 -0700, Adrienne Boswell a écrit :
Opinions? Which makes more sense?

Hers, since the location should be somewhere in the header, not in the
content.

Mike
 
J

Jim Moe

Adrienne said:
My idea:
<h2>Accessories Stores in Glendale</h2>
<div class="youarehere">You are here - Home > Categories >
Stores/Accessories</div>

Her idea:
<h2>Accessories Stores in Glendale</h2>
<div class="results">There are 10 products and 100 merchants</div>
<div class="tableheader"><div class="youarehere">You are here - Home >
Categories > Stores/Accessories</div>
Opinions? Which makes more sense?
It would make more sense to have the breadcrumb just below the main
header. That way it looks consistent across the whole site. So in this
case, sort of, yours.
 
J

Jukka K. Korpela

Adrienne Boswell said:
Seems to me I answered a post about this... but I need to convince my
boss of some things, so I am coming to alt.html.

I'm afraid I don't quite follow. Are you referring to some previous
discussions? And what's the general context that the question relates to?
URL?
My idea:
<h2>Accessories Stores in Glendale</h2>

Is this supposed to be the main heading of a page? Why is it <h2> then and
not <h1>?

What's the nature of the page? Is it dynamically generated in response to a
search request, as it seems to me?
<div class="youarehere">You are here - Home > Categories >
Stores/Accessories</div>

Home of what? How much is Stores divided by Accessories? I mean more exactly
than being smaller than Categories. (I hope you get my idea: this kind of
"breadcrumb trail" isn't quite self-explanatory and unambiguous.)
<table>
<caption><span class="results">There are 10 products and 100
merchants</span><span class="pagination">Page 1 2 3 4
Next</span></caption>
....
</table>

What have you got in "...", which has no counterpart in the alternative
design? Or is the description just somewhat incomplete, so that the other
design has <table>...</table>, too?

Do you want the caption to be rendered as

There are 10 products and 100 merchantsPage 1 2 3 4 Next

when styling is off? It seems that you would need some block level elements
inside <caption>, and this suggests that it's not really a table caption,
logically. But if you use such an approach, I would at least suggest putting
a said:
Her idea:
<h2>Accessories Stores in Glendale</h2>
<div class="results">There are 10 products and 100 merchants</div>
<div class="tableheader"><div class="youarehere">You are here - Home >
Categories > Stores/Accessories</div><div class="pagination">Page 1 2
3 4 Next</div></div>

Opinions? Which makes more sense?

It's not really a table header, or a table caption, is it? So I wouldn't
make it <caption>, and I wouldn't use a class name like "tableheader".

I don't see much difference between the designs, except technically. But
regarding the order of the result summary, the breadcrumb trail, and the
"pagination" links, I'd vote for putting first things first. The most
important information to the user is the summary of the results.

I think the real problems are:
- Is the breadcrumb needed at all? If present, should it be _after_ the
results? (Should a person using a speech browser hear the breadcrumb text,
probably ">" read as "greater than", on each and every result page when
doing a lot of queries?)
- Should the links Page 1 2 3 4 Next appear there or after the first part of
results? (Wouldn't a user normally want to read the results first, then
perhaps proceed to other parts?)
- Is the "Page 1 2 3 4 Next" style really a good one? Many search engines
use it, but why? Normally the "Next" (or "Next results") links is the only
link that is really needed. At least I would put it _first_. (Consider a
person using the tab key to move from one link to the next. Shouldn't he
first get to the link he really needs?)

I would recommend something like

<h1>Search results: Accessories Stores in Glendale</h1>

<div class="summary">Found 10 products and 100 merchants.</div>

<table>
.... (actual results here; could be written as <ol> too)
</table>

<div class="next"><a rel="next" href="...">Next set of results</a></div>

If you use a <caption>, it should be a caption for the _table_, presumably
the first set of results (hits), so if it mentions some numbers, they should
relate to those results, not the entire collection of results.
 
D

dorayme

"Adrienne Boswell said:
Seems to me I answered a post about this... but I need to convince my
boss of some things, so I am coming to alt.html.

My idea:
<h2>Accessories Stores in Glendale</h2>
<div class="youarehere">You are here - Home > Categories >
Stores/Accessories</div>
<table>
<caption><span class="results">There are 10 products and 100
merchants</span><span class="pagination">Page 1 2 3 4
Next</span></caption>
....
</table>

Her idea:
<h2>Accessories Stores in Glendale</h2>
<div class="results">There are 10 products and 100 merchants</div>
<div class="tableheader"><div class="youarehere">You are here - Home >
Categories > Stores/Accessories</div><div class="pagination">Page 1 2 3
4 Next</div></div>

Opinions? Which makes more sense?

The bits you have given are all about the location of the things
in the website. This confuses the issue and so makes you both a
bit right. Normally the breadcrumbs are about the website and the
content are about the outside world. If that were so here and
your table was about the products and merchants (which it is not
about - it is about where on the website viewers can find
information about them), then you would be right.

In this case it really does not matter. But have you described
the case well? If in fact, this site has all sorts of things on
and is not dedicated to the table of merchants and the ten
products and if you have breadcrumbs on the site generally, then
you would be much more correct.
 
A

Adrienne Boswell

I'm afraid I don't quite follow. Are you referring to some previous
discussions? And what's the general context that the question relates
to? URL?

Thank you for replying, Jukka. I always really respect your opinion. I
mentioned this incase someone said something, but on second thought, it
was another group.
Is this supposed to be the main heading of a page? Why is it <h2> then
and not <h1>?

The h1 is elsewhere, actually in the heading of the page, so it looks
like:
<h1>nextBlock Glendale CA</h1>
What's the nature of the page? Is it dynamically generated in response
to a search request, as it seems to me?

It is dynamically generated either from a link to the page or from a
search.
Home of what? How much is Stores divided by Accessories? I mean more
exactly than being smaller than Categories. (I hope you get my idea:
this kind of "breadcrumb trail" isn't quite self-explanatory and
unambiguous.)

Ah... it's not a division, but you are right; it might be interpreted
that way. Actually its Accessories Stores. There are about 33 different
stores, restaurants and services. You could have Sandwiches Restaurants
or Computers Services or Teens Stores, etc.
What have you got in "...", which has no counterpart in the
alternative design? Or is the description just somewhat incomplete, so
that the other design has <table>...</table>, too?

I didn't want to post data, hence ...
Do you want the caption to be rendered as

There are 10 products and 100 merchantsPage 1 2 3 4 Next

when styling is off? It seems that you would need some block level
elements inside <caption>, and this suggests that it's not really a
table caption, logically. But if you use such an approach, I would at
least suggest putting a <br> between the <span> elements.

I agree.
It's not really a table header, or a table caption, is it? So I
wouldn't make it <caption>, and I wouldn't use a class name like
"tableheader".

I don't see much difference between the designs, except technically.
But regarding the order of the result summary, the breadcrumb trail,
and the "pagination" links, I'd vote for putting first things first.
The most important information to the user is the summary of the
results.

I think the real problems are:
- Is the breadcrumb needed at all? If present, should it be _after_
the results? (Should a person using a speech browser hear the
breadcrumb text, probably ">" read as "greater than", on each and
every result page when doing a lot of queries?)
- Should the links Page 1 2 3 4 Next appear there or after the first
part of results? (Wouldn't a user normally want to read the results
first, then perhaps proceed to other parts?)
- Is the "Page 1 2 3 4 Next" style really a good one? Many search
engines use it, but why? Normally the "Next" (or "Next results") links
is the only link that is really needed. At least I would put it
_first_. (Consider a person using the tab key to move from one link to
the next. Shouldn't he first get to the link he really needs?)

I would recommend something like

<h1>Search results: Accessories Stores in Glendale</h1>

<div class="summary">Found 10 products and 100 merchants.</div>

<table>
... (actual results here; could be written as <ol> too)
</table>

<div class="next"><a rel="next" href="...">Next set of
results</a></div>

If you use a <caption>, it should be a caption for the _table_,
presumably the first set of results (hits), so if it mentions some
numbers, they should relate to those results, not the entire
collection of results.

Thank you, again, Jukka, you have given me a lot of food for thought.
 
A

Adrienne Boswell

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed dorayme
The bits you have given are all about the location of the things
in the website. This confuses the issue and so makes you both a
bit right. Normally the breadcrumbs are about the website and the
content are about the outside world. If that were so here and
your table was about the products and merchants (which it is not
about - it is about where on the website viewers can find
information about them), then you would be right.

In this case it really does not matter. But have you described
the case well? If in fact, this site has all sorts of things on
and is not dedicated to the table of merchants and the ten
products and if you have breadcrumbs on the site generally, then
you would be much more correct.

Thank you. I'm going to try some other ideas and see how they fair out.
I think there's probably too much clutter, needs to be simpler.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
473,733
Messages
2,569,439
Members
44,829
Latest member
PIXThurman

Latest Threads

Top