[WEB4LIB] Web design question

[Eric (Eric Rogers)]

Andrew,

We have started to gradually move to this layout, as can be seen in our
Community Links Section <http://kclibrary.org/community/community.htm>.  As
mentioned before we do this to improve readability, to better accommodate
our large number of Lynx/dial-in users, and to get sidebar information out
of the way of the main content.  So far it has been well-received with no
complaints or problems.

We use the liquid page design concept, so our pages can easily scale down to
less than 500 pixels wide and horizontal scrolling is usually avoided.

--
Eric Rogers
Internet Services Administrator, Kansas City Public Library
eric at kclibrary.org - http://www.kclibrary.org 


-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Mutch [mailto:amutch at waterford.lib.mi.us]
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 1999 12:13 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Web design question


Regular readers of Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox column will be familiar with a
recent column where Mr. Nielsen explained that bad designs can become
defacto
web standards if enough web sites adopt them.  See:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/991114.html

One example he provided was the blue "link" color, which he argues is a poor
color choice in terms of readability.  However, because it is essentially a
standard, a site that uses other colors will suffer in usability because web
users are conditioned to view blue colored text as hyperlinks.  Another
example he gave was the left-justified navigation menu.  Although Fitt's Law
[a very interesting usability concept! - see the link in the column] argues
that a right-justified navigation menu will be more efficient for users, so
many sites now use the left-justified menu that is has become a standard.

Still, I was curious if any libraries use a right-aligned navigation menu in
their web sites.  Our current site design uses a left-aligned menu on the
home
page [without the colored bar] but it does make sense that a right-aligned
menu would function better for visitors.  Mr. Nielsen noted that the
left-aligned menu is also counter-productive in that Western-readers focus
from left to right and the most important content should be appear on the
left
side of the screen.  On our web site, our highlights, like remote access,
currently sit on the right side of the screen and it does now occur to me
that
this information which should be the first thing that visitors see is
probably
the last they see.  So, if anyone has a right-aligned site, could they pass
their URL along?

Andrew Mutch
Library Systems Technician
Waterford Township Public Library
Waterford, MI