> In my opinion, the typical implementations of these footers are
only used when something else about the scent of information on the
page has failed. It's the same for breadcrumbs and site maps.
I have never seen a site that has a 100% success rate with no
mistakes, misinterpretations, oversights, or backtracks by any user.
Given that even well designed and tested sites can still have users
stumble from time to time it seems courteous for a site to provide
appropriate and unobtrusive tools to help orient the user should an
exception occur for them.
> I'd love to see people telling us that they watched whenever
someone used these elements, then repaired the scent on the page so
that they were no longer necessary
Given that the tests were to uncover usability and navigation issues
we recommended fixes to both the main navigation and page content
where appropriate. However the detailed footer was kept by the client.
From the testing I would say the footers were seen as a helpful tool
by the users even when they were not struggling with the navigation.
However, the footer was not an explicit part of the testing protocol
so this test is certainly not conclusive.
--c
--------------------------------------------
Coryndon Luxmoore
Interaction Designer
coryndon (at) luxmoore (dot) com
---------------------------------------------
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