pete_m
May 16th, 2010, 04:15 PM
. . just a thought - prompted by time spent on this and other forums .. .
When i ( netbook user ) click to view a thread i immedately have to page down past the boilerplate stuff to get to the information which i know to be present in the page. This situation is even worse when sites use banners, sponsored links and the like in this area.
An offender. .http://www.webupd8.org/2010/05/fix-symbol-grubputs-not-found-when.html
less so - but still, like many blogs, using a lot of vertical space before getting to the real content
http://www.jellykernel.org/category/interface/
The near-universal paradigm that we have adopted for web page layout with banner and such at the top is wasteful of screen real-estate.
Top is usually more important .. in the case of this pattern most often serving the priorities of the site-provider with branding and advertising rather than the user experience
Except when i first land on a site , i know where i am and why i have clicked..a good web-site will always have made that clear before i click
( cf. post previewing on these forums is an excellent feature not always implemented by VBulletin users. )
sometimes a link will take us to an arbitrary and unknown place in the site, so the breadcrumb trail remains pretty essential.
Navigation has often been placed on the left - but is often to be found( and duplicated) in the head section. .
Unity and to a lesser extent the NBR Launcher use left-side navigation - perhaps if Unity were to become mainstram it would encourage Web devlopers to move in such a direction.
So how about a new design paradigm --
essential information at the top, navigation to the left with extra options and amplifying content below
So one would replace the space-hogging home banner
with minimal branding, navigation and status information - perhaps half the size of typical current sites.
More comprehensive navigation presented at the left and context-specific supporting content below.
My current Ubuntu Netbook desktop ( based on 9.10 karmic nbr2) seems to be moving in this direction -and I'm am very happy with the results - full credit and thanks to all.
First screenshots - more soon - of my work in progress at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoI4wRVVjBs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoI4wRVVjBs)
The tremendous simplicity of the google homepage was always focussed on giving the user direct access to the service for which they have come and may well have contributed to their success.
Perhaps site-providers might consider this and focus more on user experience - even if clients may need to be convinced.
P.S. Perhaps i can teach Greasemonkey - if it's still going - to seek out boiler plate containers and pop these away - to an off-screen div, or the bottom of the page . .allowing the pertinent information to be near the top of the page .
When i ( netbook user ) click to view a thread i immedately have to page down past the boilerplate stuff to get to the information which i know to be present in the page. This situation is even worse when sites use banners, sponsored links and the like in this area.
An offender. .http://www.webupd8.org/2010/05/fix-symbol-grubputs-not-found-when.html
less so - but still, like many blogs, using a lot of vertical space before getting to the real content
http://www.jellykernel.org/category/interface/
The near-universal paradigm that we have adopted for web page layout with banner and such at the top is wasteful of screen real-estate.
Top is usually more important .. in the case of this pattern most often serving the priorities of the site-provider with branding and advertising rather than the user experience
Except when i first land on a site , i know where i am and why i have clicked..a good web-site will always have made that clear before i click
( cf. post previewing on these forums is an excellent feature not always implemented by VBulletin users. )
sometimes a link will take us to an arbitrary and unknown place in the site, so the breadcrumb trail remains pretty essential.
Navigation has often been placed on the left - but is often to be found( and duplicated) in the head section. .
Unity and to a lesser extent the NBR Launcher use left-side navigation - perhaps if Unity were to become mainstram it would encourage Web devlopers to move in such a direction.
So how about a new design paradigm --
essential information at the top, navigation to the left with extra options and amplifying content below
So one would replace the space-hogging home banner
with minimal branding, navigation and status information - perhaps half the size of typical current sites.
More comprehensive navigation presented at the left and context-specific supporting content below.
My current Ubuntu Netbook desktop ( based on 9.10 karmic nbr2) seems to be moving in this direction -and I'm am very happy with the results - full credit and thanks to all.
First screenshots - more soon - of my work in progress at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoI4wRVVjBs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoI4wRVVjBs)
The tremendous simplicity of the google homepage was always focussed on giving the user direct access to the service for which they have come and may well have contributed to their success.
Perhaps site-providers might consider this and focus more on user experience - even if clients may need to be convinced.
P.S. Perhaps i can teach Greasemonkey - if it's still going - to seek out boiler plate containers and pop these away - to an off-screen div, or the bottom of the page . .allowing the pertinent information to be near the top of the page .