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katherine lumb | 1 Nov 2005 02:55
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[Sigia-l] where to put common links

I have a client who wants to do something "different" and would like
to put some common links (site map, contact us, our company, our
products) in the footer rather than at top right.

Obviously, this will get tested at some point.

Until then, can anyone point me to any research on the subject of
optimal link placement, conventions for common interface elements,
etc? I have explained that most users will expect to find these links
in particular places, like the upper right corner of the page; but I
don't want to tell him "no" too hastily or without some backup.

Thanks,

K

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Andrew Boyd | 1 Nov 2005 03:18

Re: [Sigia-l] where to put common links

katherine lumb wrote:

>I have a client who wants to do something "different" and would like
>to put some common links (site map, contact us, our company, our
>products) in the footer rather than at top right.
>
>Obviously, this will get tested at some point.
>
>Until then, can anyone point me to any research on the subject of
>optimal link placement, conventions for common interface elements,
>etc? I have explained that most users will expect to find these links
>in particular places, like the upper right corner of the page; but I
>don't want to tell him "no" too hastily or without some backup.
>  
>
Hi Katherine,

Without going into the realm of Yet Another Best Practice Bunfight, I've 
found it easiest in the past to do a few five-minute usability tests on 
navigation placement to establish what is expected within the given 
organisation, then use GOMS to convert this into a rough dollars and 
cents argument - "Sir or Madam, testing has established that this is the 
best way to do navigation placement within your organisation. If we do 
it this other way, it will cost the organisation an estimated extra 14 
people-months per year".

Get said client to sit in on some of the tests if you can.

The disclaimer for the above should read  "Warning: this only works if 
you have easy access to a predefined set of end users and the client is
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Listera | 1 Nov 2005 04:50
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Re: [Sigia-l] where to put common links

Andrew Boyd:

> The trouble with expert opinion on navigation placement is that there is
> so much of it...

C'mon, Andrew, don't be shy, say it:
There.is.no.optimal.link.placement.without.context. :-)

Optimal is relative. If it were applicable in every case, it'd be absolute.
Without any context given, it's absolutely, positively to wrong to declare
that "common links" should only be placed at any one specific location.

I can't believe this is still in contention in the year of our lord 2005.

---- 
Ziya

Best Practices,
For when you've run out of your own ideas and context.

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Listera | 1 Nov 2005 05:04
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[Sigia-l] World Usability Day

Nov 3 is it:

<http://www.worldusabilityday.org/>

Of course, nobody told these clueless people that optimally the vertical
link bars are always on the left. :-)

---- 
Ziya

Best Practices,
For when you've run out of your own ideas and context.

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Peter Morville | 1 Nov 2005 15:00

[Sigia-l] Laughing Lemur Contest

Have a digital camera? Like books? Live dangerously? If so, enter today:

http://www.findability.org/archives/000067.php

May the best lemur win :-)

Peter Morville
President, Semantic Studios
http://semanticstudios.com
http://findability.org

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Peter Morville | 1 Nov 2005 16:06

[Sigia-l] ANSI/NISO Z39.19 - 2005

The new "Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of
Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies" have been completed and published. I
was fortunate to serve on the committee along with folks who know way more
about controlled vocabularies and thesauri than I do. If you have any
interest in deep ia or bottom-up ia, I highly recommend reading these
guidelines.

You can view the abstract here:

http://www.niso.org/standards/standard_detail.cfm?std_id=801

Or download the standard here:

http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/Z39-19-2005.pdf  

A print version will be available for purchase in the near future. Cheers!

Peter Morville
President, Semantic Studios
http://semanticstudios.com
http://findability.org

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Peter Morville | 1 Nov 2005 17:58

[Sigia-l] ANSI/NISO Z39.19 - 2005

I copied the wrong abstract link. Here's the right one:

http://www.niso.org/standards/standard_detail.cfm?std_id=814 

Sorry!

Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-bounces <at> asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-bounces <at> asis.org] On Behalf
Of Peter Morville
Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 10:06 AM
To: aifia-members <at> lists.ibiblio.org; sigia-l <at> asis.org
Subject: [Sigia-l] ANSI/NISO Z39.19 - 2005

The new "Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of
Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies" have been completed and published. I
was fortunate to serve on the committee along with folks who know way more
about controlled vocabularies and thesauri than I do. If you have any
interest in deep ia or bottom-up ia, I highly recommend reading these
guidelines.

You can view the abstract here:

http://www.niso.org/standards/standard_detail.cfm?std_id=801

Or download the standard here:

http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/Z39-19-2005.pdf
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William Denton | 1 Nov 2005 18:06
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Re: [Sigia-l] ANSI/NISO Z39.19 - 2005

On 1 November 2005, Peter Morville wrote:

> The new "Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of
> Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies" have been completed and published. I
> was fortunate to serve on the committee along with folks who know way more
> about controlled vocabularies and thesauri than I do. If you have any
> interest in deep ia or bottom-up ia, I highly recommend reading these
> guidelines.

I'm glad to hear the revisions are done.  I've been using the draft for a 
medical thesaurus and it's very useful, much more so than earlier 
and shorter versions.  Z39.19 is a great standard, and the full document 
is a great guide to everything about thesauri, for beginners to experts.

Bill
--

-- 
William Denton : Toronto, Canada : www.miskatonic.org : www.frbr.org
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Tony Brown | 1 Nov 2005 20:09

[Sigia-l] RE: World Usability Day


Ziya,

I think calling people “clueless” as you did below is just inappropriate.  

As a long time member of the usability profession I’m proud of what folks
are doing in this area on a pro-bono basis for World Usability Day and the
web site.  Hopefully a moderator can extinguish this kind of harsh attack in
the future.  Your comment has tarnished the field of information
architecture in the view of many people.  We need to step-up and discourage
vicious statements like this.

			- Tony  

Tony J. Brown, Ph.D. 
Founder & Director of User Interface Design
SoftPlex, Inc. 
540 Main Street 
Winchester, MA  01890 
Tel. 781-729-8055 
Fax 781-729-7634 
tony <at> softplex.com

Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 23:04:02 -0500
From: Listera <listera <at> rcn.com>
Subject: [Sigia-l] World Usability Day
To: SIGIA-L <sigia-l <at> asis.org>
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Listera | 1 Nov 2005 22:00
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Re: [Sigia-l] RE: World Usability Day

Tony Brown:

> I think calling people ³clueless² as you did below is just inappropriate.

Tony, you need to reboot your sarcasm detector to spot the ":-)" at the end
of that sentence and sees the irony and the absurdity in light of the recent
thread on where to place "optimal" links.

---- 
Ziya

Best Practices,
For when you've run out of your own ideas and context.

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Gmane