RE: [WSG] Footer Navigation

[Andy Kirkwood | Motive]

Hi Sarah,

COLD WAR AND NAVIGATION CRITIQUE
A usability consideration with link duplication is the potential for 
'navigational confusion'. This becomes more pronounced if there are 
*apparent* differences either in presentation or wording of the 
navigation. To polarise the issue, it can be useful to adopt a 
'cold-war' mindset. Assume that navigation is the interface to a 
military mainframe computer, where , at a moments notice the operator 
has to deploy a countering anti-nuclear missile. In this hypothetical 
situation hesitation caused by poor navigation labels or duplicate 
navigation could have serious repercussions.


(I was put on to this particular paradigm by a Useit article 
reappraising military computer interface standards from 1986: < 
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050117_guidelines.html >)


SIGN-POSTS
In a previous incarnation of our corporate website, we eschewed 
navigation at the top of the page entirely. Our rationale was, that 
coming to the end of the content, presenting the user with the 
top-level navigational options would be more efficient. No scrolling 
back to the top of the page. Our thinking was changed by Steve Krug's 
'Don't Make Me Think' (with its either ironic or unfortunate cover) 
where he discusses navigation in terms of real-world signage. If 
you're lost in an unfamiliar city do you look to your feet or up at 
street signage? In addition, when a user looks to the top-level 
navigation, it is likely that they are starting a new 'task'.
The street-signage analogy, coupled with Western reading traditions 
of starting at the top left of a page convinced us to move our 
navigation to the top of the screen (and only list 
administrative-level links in the page footer).


For more support you could also refer your client to our glossary 
entry on navigation: < 
http://www.motive.co.nz/glossary/navigation.php >


Best regards,

--
Andy Kirkwood | Creative Director

Motive | web.design.integrity
http://www.motive.co.nz
ph: (04) 3 800 800  fx: (04) 970 9693
mob: 021 369 693
93 Rintoul St, Newtown
PO Box 7150, Wellington South, New Zealand
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Re: [WSG] Feedback

[Zach Inglis]

Design crituque wise:

Make it center rather than oddly positioned.
make the grey text darker, remember people of the older generation  
are more likely to be reading it and thus may have eyes that are  
statring to fail.
is that blue on red? thats really wrong.. stick with a light light  
pink or a white font.


On 14 Oct 2005, at 19:46, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


I have been a fly on the wall for some time in this group and I was  
really
hoping to get a bit of feedback on a site I am almost finished  
with.  Copy

will change and possibly some site design before I deliver the final
version.

What I am hoping for is a bit of a report card- what was done well  
and where
did I fail miserably.  (BTW one of the pages does not validate  
right now,
the client just had us insert some new links that need to be  
reformatted)


www.mcguireomaha.com

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions you can give as well  
as any
positive feedback.  I've just taken a bit of a beating from the  
client ;-)


Joe



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Re: [WSG] Feedback www.mcguireomaha.com

[Francesco Sanfilippo]

First thing I would say is that it's too difficult to find how to FIND
a home.  First you have to see the small link on the right, then the
page refreshes and looks virtually the same.  One would expect to see
a search form immediately, but instead I had to scroll down and hunt
for a text link to a search page.  Too much work.

Francesco

On 10/14/05, Rick Faaberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 10/14/05 1:13 PM "Collin Davis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> sent
> this out:
>
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Sent: Friday, October 14, 2005 1:46 PM
> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Org
> > Subject: [WSG] Feedback
> >
> > I have been a fly on the wall for some time in this group and I was really
> > hoping to get a bit of feedback on a site I am almost finished with.  Copy
> > will change and possibly some site design before I deliver the final
> > version.
> >
> > What I am hoping for is a bit of a report card- what was done well and where
> > did I fail miserably.  (BTW one of the pages does not validate right now,
> > the client just had us insert some new links that need to be reformatted)
> >
> > www.mcguireomaha.com
>
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> The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
>
>  See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
>  for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
> **
>
>
>


--
Francesco Sanfilippo
Web Architect and Software Developer
http://www.blackcoil.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
402-932-5695 home office
402-676-3011 mobile

Professional web developer and Internet consultant with 10 years experience.
Specializing in ASP.NET, C#, SQL Server, CSS/XHTML, and digital photography.
Founder and developer of URL123.com - now serving 2 million clicks per month.
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Re: [WSG] Feedback www.mcguireomaha.com

[Rick Faaberg]

On 10/14/05 1:13 PM "Collin Davis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> sent
this out:

> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Friday, October 14, 2005 1:46 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Org
> Subject: [WSG] Feedback
> 
> I have been a fly on the wall for some time in this group and I was really
> hoping to get a bit of feedback on a site I am almost finished with.  Copy
> will change and possibly some site design before I deliver the final
> version.
> 
> What I am hoping for is a bit of a report card- what was done well and where
> did I fail miserably.  (BTW one of the pages does not validate right now,
> the client just had us insert some new links that need to be reformatted)
> 
> www.mcguireomaha.com

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RE: [WSG] Feedback

[jelsasser]

Thanks!



-Original Message-
From: Christian Montoya [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2005 2:34 PM
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re: [WSG] Feedback


I won't do a whole report card, but here's three things that should be
changed:

1. The navigation list:
<* li><* img src="images/bullet.gif" alt="Omaha Home" /><* /li>

You are doing this to put bullets between the list items. Don't do
this, here's the alternative:

#menu li {
padding-bottom:1em;
background: url(images/bullet.gif) bottom center no-repeat;
}

That will make the list half as long, take out all those ugly img
tags, and it will look the same.

2. The links on the "find a home" and "sell your home" pages are too
light. I can barely see them, and they don't stand out at all, which
is also detrimental to your clients marketing. The links should be
more obvious than the text, so making them darker, or a different
color, would be better.

3. The xhtml and css buttons on the right are pointless... nobody
looking for a home is going to care how the site was built, and the
buttons look tacky. Just keep the links on the bottom, those are fine,
and take the buttons out.

Otherwise, keep up the good work.

- C Montoya
rdpdesign.com ... liquid.rdpdesign.com ... montoya.rdpdesign.com
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RE: [WSG] Feedback

[Collin Davis]

Just a quick note:
On the "Find a Home" (omaha_homes_for_sale.htm) page, the "Meet the Team"
link text turns into "Bios" (goes to the same page - not a big deal, but
consistent navigation is important)

Looks good

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2005 1:46 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Org
Subject: [WSG] Feedback

I have been a fly on the wall for some time in this group and I was really
hoping to get a bit of feedback on a site I am almost finished with.  Copy
will change and possibly some site design before I deliver the final
version.

What I am hoping for is a bit of a report card- what was done well and where
did I fail miserably.  (BTW one of the pages does not validate right now,
the client just had us insert some new links that need to be reformatted)

www.mcguireomaha.com

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions you can give as well as any
positive feedback.  I've just taken a bit of a beating from the client ;-)

Joe



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 See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
 for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
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Re: [WSG] Feedback

[Christian Montoya]

I won't do a whole report card, but here's three things that should be changed:

1. The navigation list:
<* li><* img src="images/bullet.gif" alt="Omaha Home" /><* /li>

You are doing this to put bullets between the list items. Don't do
this, here's the alternative:

#menu li {
padding-bottom:1em;
background: url(images/bullet.gif) bottom center no-repeat;
}

That will make the list half as long, take out all those ugly img
tags, and it will look the same.

2. The links on the "find a home" and "sell your home" pages are too
light. I can barely see them, and they don't stand out at all, which
is also detrimental to your clients marketing. The links should be
more obvious than the text, so making them darker, or a different
color, would be better.

3. The xhtml and css buttons on the right are pointless... nobody
looking for a home is going to care how the site was built, and the
buttons look tacky. Just keep the links on the bottom, those are fine,
and take the buttons out.

Otherwise, keep up the good work.

- C Montoya
rdpdesign.com ... liquid.rdpdesign.com ... montoya.rdpdesign.com
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Re: [WSG] Feedback

[Gunlaug Sørtun]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


www.mcguireomaha.com


Only looking at home page.

Good points:

1: generally good-looking and well organized - graphically.

Weak points:

1a: not very user-friendly when font-resizing options are applied.
Breaking and overlapping may become a problem in all browsers.

1b: you've broken the normal font-resizing option in IE/win for parts of
the page. Makes it look funny and more broken than it is, as some parts
resize and some parts don't.

2: background not lining up in Opera. Set 'body {padding: 0;}' to solve
that.

3: This alt="Omaha Realtor Linda McGuire Omaha Realtor Lisa McGuire
Kelly" doesn't really make sense, does it? Some other alt-attributes
that should either be left empty, or rewritten so they make more sense
when seen through a text-only or other alternative browser. Bullets
shouldn't have alt-text.

Georg
--
http://www.gunlaug.no
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Re: [WSG] Feedback

[Bruce]

Hey Joe,

Overall I say well done :-)
However, for a fixed width layout, at 800 screen res I get scrollbars at the
bottom on ie6 and firefox. There's room on the left to move it over.

As an aside Omaha mls I see has the MOST user unfriendly mls listings
display I have ever seen. I primarily do realty work, and I had trouble and
gave up seeing any listings on their mls. I am sure visitors more so. I'd
get then to change to a custom IDX.  That has nothin to do with you though,
but some to do with standards and usability.

Bruce Prochnau
BKDesign Solutions

- Original Message - 
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED] Org" 
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2005 2:46 PM
Subject: [WSG] Feedback


> I have been a fly on the wall for some time in this group and I was really
> hoping to get a bit of feedback on a site I am almost finished with.  Copy
> will change and possibly some site design before I deliver the final
> version.
>
> What I am hoping for is a bit of a report card- what was done well and
where
> did I fail miserably.  (BTW one of the pages does not validate right now,
> the client just had us insert some new links that need to be reformatted)
>
> www.mcguireomaha.com
>
> Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions you can give as well as any
> positive feedback.  I've just taken a bit of a beating from the client ;-)
>
> Joe
>
>
>
> **
> The discussion list for  http://webstandardsgroup.org/
>
>  See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm
>  for some hints on posting to the list & getting help
> **
>
>

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[WSG] Re: digest for wsg@webstandardsgroup.org

[Stefan Hayden]

I was working with A List Apart's Negative Margins  and I ran in to an annoying problem.

When I put a Table (it's tabular data I swear) in to the center column
(the one that flexes) I can't make it fill the entire width of the
column with out breaking out of the column and forcing the float on the
right to wrap below all the center content.

If I make the width of the Table: Auto it fills the width in Firefox but does not expand o fill the width in IE 6.

If I make the width of the Table: 100% it fills the width in Firefox
but breaks the column in IE 6 and forces the float to wrap below.

How can I make the Table fill the full width of the column in FireFox and IE 6? Any help would be amazing.

Thanks
Stefan Hayden

[WSG] Feedback

[jelsasser]

I have been a fly on the wall for some time in this group and I was really
hoping to get a bit of feedback on a site I am almost finished with.  Copy
will change and possibly some site design before I deliver the final
version.

What I am hoping for is a bit of a report card- what was done well and where
did I fail miserably.  (BTW one of the pages does not validate right now,
the client just had us insert some new links that need to be reformatted)

www.mcguireomaha.com

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions you can give as well as any
positive feedback.  I've just taken a bit of a beating from the client ;-)

Joe



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RE: [WSG] Web page check

[GALLAGHER Kevin S]

Adam,

 

Thanks for your assistance; I will tinker with this during
the weekend!

 

Kevin

 



 



-Original Message-
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of adam reitsma
Sent: Thursday,
 October 13, 2005 3:35 PM
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re: [WSG] Web page check

 

try putting a
"float:left" into your div.classdescriptions.

worked for me in FF.



On 10/13/05, GALLAGHER Kevin S <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote: 



First off the site was designed before
Firefox and was my first site. Now I have been seeing things were Firefox is
displaying something's differently then IE which is fine except one thing.

 

 

On http://www.jimjacobe.com/ClassDescriptions.html
 I have listed classes for an instructor, items 2, 4 and 5 (some others
farther down have the same issue) have text positioned incorrectly in Firefox
but look correct in IE, specifically the content starting "An" in the
first two problem areas.

 

If someone can look at this and tell me what needs to be done to fix
this. Not necessarily looking for the fix code wise but more of is this a
syntax issue or something I simple did wrong and IE is doing it's thing to fix
things.

 

Thanks for taking the time to look at this page and if possible provide
some feed back

 

Kevin 

 

 



 










 

Re: [WSG] css for ie4/ie5

[Mark Harris]

Mark Harris wrote:

I can think of 2 secure ways to use IE/windows to test webpages:

1   run a webserver on a separate box _inside_ your firewall and install 
your pages there for testing - stack a firewall between the systems if 
you need to test that.


2   run VirtualPC (or some other windows emulator) on a good fast Mac 
with lots of RAM (and I'm thinking 1GB and up here) - if you get 
infected - it's not going to compromise your system and you can easily 
replace the disk image.



and, of course, run a Windows emulator on a linux box

[sigh]
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Re: [WSG] css for ie4/ie5

[Mark Harris]

Peter Ottery wrote:

Peter Firminger wrote:


Not at all recommended on any machine you care about.



Just for my own peace of mind tho - they're only a security issue when
you have launched the program right? so if i'm launching them (old
standalone IE5 & 5.5) once a month to *only* test pages that I've
created - I'm not leaving my system open to some rogue security
breaching  action right?



I'm hoping the evolt guys have removed any of the known spyware hooks 
that were packaged with those browsers (also called "browser helper 
objects" - see http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/bho/). The problem 
with running IE on a Windows box is just WTF it does in the registry - I 
don't believe anyone outside of MS actually knows everything IE gets up 
to, system-wise.


Also, make sure your firewall is solid and your AV up to date. IE is 
_built_ to download and install stuff. Run ZoneAlarm or something like 
it (*not* Windows Firewall that comes with XP - it knows to let IE 
through) so you can tell if something does start up and try to access 
the net.


The rule of thumb when installing a new machine is that it only takes 18 
minutes online to get infected (takes longer than that to download the 
patches - catch 22 - see 
http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/tec082904.html) - and it may be 
something as simple as lowering your security level in the background 
and leaving it there.


I can think of 2 secure ways to use IE/windows to test webpages:

1   run a webserver on a separate box _inside_ your firewall and install 
your pages there for testing - stack a firewall between the systems if 
you need to test that.


2   run VirtualPC (or some other windows emulator) on a good fast Mac 
with lots of RAM (and I'm thinking 1GB and up here) - if you get 
infected - it's not going to compromise your system and you can easily 
replace the disk image.


I've worked with both options and never got a virus from testing yet.

Actually, the only virus I can remember getting was a Sasser infection 
while upgrading my wife's machine to XP (see above)



cheers

mark

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RE: [WSG] Footer Navigation

[Ricci Angela]

Hi, Sarah

By the accessibility point of view there's no problem in duplicating 
links on a page if you follow this simple rule: all similar links (links with 
same text) *must* point to the same pages.

Cheers!
Angela

-Message d'origine-
De : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] la part de Sarah Peeke (XERT)
Envoyé : vendredi 14 octobre 2005 06:51
À : WSG
Objet : [WSG] Footer Navigation


Hi all,

I am interested to know what you think of duplicating navigation in the
footer of a page.

I have a client who has requested it, but I do not, as a rule, include
duplicate links - I seem to recall there were some accessibility issues
with duplicate navigation links for screen readers.

What are the pros and cons regarding usability vs accessibility?

Is there a relevant standard I could quote here?

Thanks in advance
Sarah :)
-- 
XERT Communications
email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
office: +61 2 4782 3104
mobile: 0438 017 416


web development : digital imaging : dvd production
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