WebPages with good mouseovers - two examples

[William Taylor]

Ignoring the pros and cons of requiring your users to enable javascript, the accessibility issues, etc., I wanted to make just a design point, looking at these two pages:

I think mouseovers are unhelpful when they cover up the heading or other element that they are intended to explain.  When you point to a heading on the NIH page <http://nihlibrary.nih.gov/>, it disappears under a block of text, which I find somewhat disorienting.  I prefer the design at the U. Wisconsin law library <http://library.law.wisc.edu/>, where the popup explanations appear in a separate part of the page.  Even more useful, I think, is something like the Yale homepage <http://www.yale.edu> where the popups are themselves clickable links to further, more specific, information.  

Bill Taylor


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William L. Taylor * taylorw at law.georgetown.edu * 202-662-9141
Reference & Electronic Services Librarian
Georgetown Law Library * 111 G St. NW, Washington, DC 20001