So we know there’s a backlash of the list article format going on. And we know that the general cure to the “disease” is to go for quality, not quanity. Discussions instead of a bombardment of links and screen grabs. Though of course, that’s debatable since if I’m a designer looking for these resources in the first place, I’d find them indispensable anyway.
The thing is though, if I am looking for that perfectly tiled background pattern or that brilliant CSS3 button tutorial, how do I scour through oodles of these lists to find exactly what I need? How would I know from my list of bookmarks or starred Google Reader items that the blog post titled “50+ Fresh CSS Techniques, Tutorials and Resources” is the one I need, and not “5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers”? These titles are super vague and because the posts are super long, it’s now finding a needle in a haystack.
List article authors need to raise the stakes and add more useful features. A table of contents, for example, that summarizes all the items in the list. Tags too, that should describe the article with keywords as specific as possible.
Perhaps someone can even create an aggregator of these lists, with proper categorization and search. It could even be—gasp—the next “CSS gallery”.
Why fan the flames and tolerate list articles? Again, I know what they’re useful for. They’re a convenient way to check up on what’s new in the design blogosphere, and you can never have too many resources. They’re certainly taking up space for thought-provoking discussions, but the demand is high and we need them too. We might as well rally to improve the format instead of banish it.
The same goes for CSS galleries and image bookmarking sites. I welcome the large amount of sites because sometimes you can never have enough. But how I browse through and experience their content can definitely be improved.
I’m not just talking about aesthetics or readability here. I’m talking about what can be considered new forms of content with sub-content that can describe and classify them:
- the list article as a type of resource list that contains different downloadable files (e.g., brushes, vectors, photos), tutorials, screenshots, etc.
- the CSS gallery as a type of website list that contains different websites classified according to style, site type, color, CMS, topic, number of pages, designer, etc.
- the image bookmarking site as a type of image list that contains different images classified according to style, image type, color, resolution, designer, etc.
Is it possible to create new content formats for these? People have managed to do so many things with Twitter tweets, and Microformats are moving forward at a steady pace, so why not see if we can remix and mashup larger types of content, like ones contained in blog posts?
One of the biggest problems on the Web is that we’re marking things up on such a low level, while tapping into XML structures isn’t as easy to do yet. But imagine if we can make all these resources so much more organized and findable. Maybe people wouldn’t need to complain about list articles and CSS galleries as cliches then.
A few weeks ago Google announced that it can now extract and index textual content from Adobe Flash files. We all know that creating websites in pure Flash is a big no-no if you care about being found through search engines. So is there nothing left that’s stopping web designers from switching from plain old HTML and CSS to rich interactive Flash? I have yet to find somebody who agrees with a resounding “yes!”
Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz, believes that this new development isn’t compelling enough to start building sites with Flash.
Flash content is fundamentally different from HTML on webpage URLs and being able to parse links in the Flash code and text snippets does not make Flash search-engine friendly. I think it’s great that Google’s digging deeper into Flash, but I don’t believe web developers should be any less wary than they’ve been in the past about Flash-based websites or Flash-embedded content.
If anything, I commend Google for continuing to convince web designers and search engine marketers alike to embrace web standards by pushing for the best practices in coding websites. Of course it’s the most logical thing both parties: search spiders need to parse content properly so that they can index it, and a well-formed webpage makes this possible; webmasters need not wade through nested tables and unnecessary tag soup when there’s a better way. And Google should, since it’s way more influential than Opera or any other web company out there.
However, Google’s efforts to read Flash still seem to be in the premature stages. Typical Google, they always release their products in beta without being wary of the consequences.
By consequences I mean clients who are now running around telling their web designers to create animated intros and the extravagant interfaces for their websites. I can’t really shoot down this little achievement by Google—except that it’s getting scarily smarter everyday and should try to have more features than issues when they launch a product.
More importantly, I can only continue to condemn those who misuse Flash without any regard for accessibility, much less usability, whatsoever.
I’m no master of writing wicked linkbait, getting a thousand crazy linkage, reaching the frontpage of Digg, and so on. In a way, I pride myself with that, because most of this kind of content is downright boring.
Think about it, another 35 ways to do this or that list, do we need that?
At times, absolutely. Smashing Magazine is a proof of that, it’s often a great resource, since they’ve done all your research. Glancing over the content is boring though, as is writing that kind of posts, in my opinion. I guess they like it though, or make a bundle of it.
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The rise of various content management systems has allowed almost everyone to publish multi–page websites discussing everything, from the popular to the mundane. These days, you don’t even need your own webhosting account to launch your own site. Popular blog publishing solutions like Blogger, WordPress, and TypePad can be used to house every aspiring publisher’s bright ideas. Just the same, with the abundance of free themes and designs, new sites can look reasonably acceptable visually.
But with a decent design, engaging writing, and valuable content, what would fuse them all into one solid product? Sound site navigation.
Navigation types
The three elements mentioned above can build a good webpage, but only with good site navigation and information organization will it result in a good site. Typically, navigational links can be categorized into three types:
- Global — Used to give access to a site’s main sections or divisions.
- Hierarchical — Denotes hierarchy or layers of sections and pages, allowing readers to go deeper or higher in a site’s information structure.
- Local — Often used to navigate within a page, or towards other similar pages of the same level within the hierarchy of content.
Expectedly, global navigation is present throughout all pages, though hierarchical and local elements are shown as needed. Unfortunately, it is the dynamic nature of the latter two that makes them hard to implement in a straightforward manner, thus resulting in pages with no clear navigational paths.
The past, the present, and the future
Ideally, every webpage serves a purpose; to sell a product, to provide information, or basically to provoke an action. A site visitor may chance upon a page through several means: from search engines, from another site, or from a page within the same site.
If the visitor gets the exact information from your page, then its mission is accomplished. But what’s next? And what if the content isn’t exactly what they’re looking for?
This is where your information structure matters. You want your readers to get exactly the content they’re after, and keep them reading for more, if needed. Because of this, readers must know where they currently are in relation to other pages and sections (present), where they can go next (future), and if applicable, where they were just before they page they’re on (past). The “Where Am I?” question is a good metric for evaluating a site’s navigational soundness.
If a page provides no insight regarding the options a reader may have, they leave and go somewhere else.
Applying what we know
Informing a reader’s present location within a site can be done in many ways. At its simplest form, it can be the title of the page itself, presented in relation to other navigational links. This can be easily implemented using visual cues, through CSS, markup manipulation, or graphical effects, or a combination of all these.
The “Past, Present, Future” way of denoting state and location is usually done with “< Previous Article | Current Article | Next Article >” links. In a hierarchical context, breadcrumb navigation is a common solution, and it works. “Home > Archives > My Article” is effective because even casual web users understand it, as they have seen it from other sites. Of course we know that when it comes to interface behavior, what works is what the users expect. And what users expect is based on what they typically encounter. If it takes them several seconds to figure out your navigation, chances are they will leave and search for something else.
From a local point of view, the “My Article | My Other Article | Another Article” approach is helpful in pushing relevant content to a reader. Like in a weblog, it is of value to your reader that a list of links to related entries are provided right after your post.
A point of contention among some web designers asks if a page should link to itself in navigational elements. It can be confusing for a casual reader since it takes them back to the same page. I personally think it is unnecessary, except for links labeled as “Home” that takes a reader to a site’s index page, or a page’s header which by convention (and users’ expectations) behaves the same way.
But what about Search?
In today’s search–driven web, sound site navigation and structure is even more important since it pushes the rest of your site with just one good position in the SERPs. Assuming a blog talks about oranges and a specific entry ranks well, visitors to that page will be presented a wealth of related information discussing oranges, assuming they can get to other relevant pages on your sites. And then your readers will be very happy reading about oranges.
Site-wide search works the same way. As they find their way to specific pages they’ve searched for using your own search functionality, you get them what they want, and then some.
Good navigation is the glue of all your content, it connects information into one vital structural unit and helps you serve your users and readers better.
Written by Markku Seguerra. He takes photos and blogs design at rebelpixel.com — sometimes.
