Ours was not a true site map -- I've rarely seen this pattern include
content deeper than the second level. We did have a link to this full
site map in our footer as well, which was worded like "see full site
map" or something similar -- I apologize for forgetting exactly what
it was, but the implication was "need more detail? -- go here."
And although linking to the site map from the top navigation is
common, linking to it from the footer is also common, especially on
data- and/or content-dense sites where the top screen real estate is
in high demand - see CNN.com, for one example off the top of my head.
Yeah -- I hear you about the performance thing; I had concerns about
that, too. And truth be told, if it weren't for that one lady who
totally relied on our footer, I was all in favor of killing it, since
the chief reason for having it there was that the previous UX
consultant on the project thought it was trendy and sold the business
on it. I was with the participant who said it was clutter.
:-)
On Apr 22, 2009, at 2:40 AM, Jeff Geurts wrote:
If it were indeed a site map, then I would suggest linking to it from
a top-level navigation area. There are more users familiar with a
typical site map link than with scrolling to the bottom of the screen
to find it there.
However, I feel that loading this kind of material every time a page
is loaded may be excessive and cost in performance.
Joan Vermette
email: [email protected]
primary phone: 617-495-0184
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