On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 16:24, Simon Marlow wrote: > On 29/03/2010 13:20, Christopher Done wrote: > >> On 29 March 2010 11:19, Simon Marlow wrote: >> >>> Is the footer necessary? I dislike sites that have too many ways to >>> navigate, and the footer looks superfluous. The footer will probably be >>> off >>> the bottom of the window in any case, which reduces its usefulness as a >>> navigation tool. >>> >> >> Footer navigations are a way to provide a bit of a sitemap without >> cluttering the top nav, good for SEO, and to provide the user with an >> overview of the hierarchical structure of the site on every page. >> > > IMHO, these aren't compelling reasons. Note that already on your page > there is an inconsistency between the tabs at the top and the headings at > the bottom: I don't know where to look to find the content I want. Put the > navigation in one place. > > A sitemap: sitemaps are for robots. If you're worried about cluttering up > the page, use drop-down menus. > > SEO: we shouldn't compromise the usability or appearance of the site for > SEO. If we do it right, SEO takes care of itself - and it's not like we > care that much about SEO here, we're not competing with other sites to sell > you Haskell. >
I like something like this footer (though I don't think this is a great one: page-specific wiki actions doesn't belong, and I don't get the "Reports" column). It clearly doesn't serve as main navigation. For me, it's the "where do I go next" collection of links for when I've read the page. I think it can improve usability, not hurt it. As for SEO, I don't think the concern should be "do we show up high in the ranks?" but rather "does a query in a search engine take you to the most appropriate page?" I've long been frustrated by Google not being able to find good answers to my Haskell-related questions. If there's anything we can do to improve this issue by changing the page layout and structure of haskell.org, then I'm all for it. This in itself is a matter of usability. Regards, Sean
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