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Re: JaoudeStudios release v4.2 :: opinions please...

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 12:03 am
by jaoudestudios
JAB Creations wrote:Over all it looks pretty good and most of my criticisms should be easy to implement if you decide to do so. :)
Thanks for your time, I will look through it this weekend with onion2k suggestions too.

Re: JaoudeStudios release v4.2 :: opinions please...

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 2:45 am
by onion2k
JAB Creations wrote:Why not arrange the menu alphabetically? With positioning you can still arrange the code's order of anchors if you desire.
Why would you do that?

Re: JaoudeStudios release v4.2 :: opinions please...

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 2:54 am
by JAB Creations
onion2k wrote:
JAB Creations wrote:Why not arrange the menu alphabetically? With positioning you can still arrange the code's order of anchors if you desire.
Why would you do that?
Do which, alphabetize the menu or use positioning?

With English we read left to right top to bottom and our minds associate certain letters with positioning in some circumstances by default unless they have been trained otherwise (e.g. a well established site where an unorganized menu has appeared for years).

In regards to positioning if you alphabetize the menus though want to give greater weight to one anchor (let's say that starts with 'z') over another (let's say that starts with 'a') you can put the 'z' menu first and the 'a' menu last from the top to bottom order in the code for spiders though position the menus visual positioning for human visitors.

If you've ever played Sim City Classic the center of town has the highest land value while in XHTML the body is considered the center of town so in example a high value element such as the h1 element (which should only occur once any way) is best placed after body element as closely as possible to maximize the page's SEO.

Re: JaoudeStudios release v4.2 :: opinions please...

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 3:42 am
by onion2k
JAB Creations wrote:With English we read left to right top to bottom and our minds associate certain letters with positioning in some circumstances by default unless they have been trained otherwise (e.g. a well established site where an unorganized menu has appeared for years).
Actually, on websites, we don't. We read in an F shaped pattern. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html
JAB Creations wrote:In regards to positioning if you alphabetize the menus though want to give greater weight to one anchor (let's say that starts with 'z') over another (let's say that starts with 'a') you can put the 'z' menu first and the 'a' menu last from the top to bottom order in the code for spiders though position the menus visual positioning for human visitors.
Spiders don't prioritise things from first to last. They weight things depending on which sorts of tags they're nested in; 2 items in the same list will have the same priority regardless of which is first.

Re: JaoudeStudios release v4.2 :: opinions please...

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 3:56 am
by papa
I would almost never make a menu in alphabetic order. People are used to certain links be in a certain place, "contact us" latter etc.

Re: JaoudeStudios release v4.2 :: opinions please...

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 12:19 pm
by califdon
What an interesting collection of conflicting opinions! :D Great discussion! I'm finding this to be a stimulating thread. And I really enjoyed reading the "F-scan" article, thanks, ~onion2k! We may be straying from the original objective of helping ~Jaoudestudios with his design critique, though.

Re: JaoudeStudios release v4.2 :: opinions please...

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 1:06 pm
by JAB Creations
It's personal preference so to each their own. jaoudestudios like any of us can choose to make any of the suggested changes or not. In example one of the criticisms of my own site was the confusion created by having the two sets of scrollbars almost directly next to each other (mentioned by Chris here on the forums) and his suggestion led me to implementing an interesting adaptation to the issue. While not all criticisms hold weight there are always going to be suggestions or thoughts that do lead to productive changes. :)

However I have noticed when I used absolute positioned menus that Google does indeed prioritize "physical" vertical placement of anchors in code. My forums used to outrank my "home" section until I rearranged the anchor order. The effect is clear as the menus on my site are practically at the very bottom of the XHTML code.

Re: JaoudeStudios release v4.2 :: opinions please...

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 1:53 pm
by jaoudestudios
califdon wrote:What an interesting collection of conflicting opinions! :D Great discussion! I'm finding this to be a stimulating thread. And I really enjoyed reading the "F-scan" article, thanks, ~onion2k! We may be straying from the original objective of helping ~Jaoudestudios with his design critique, though.
I dont mind - all of you have been very helpful, I feel that I have got some great constructive feedback. I plan to address all suggestions on Saturday, like JAB said I might not implement all of them, but its all food for thought. Sometimes it is good to follow the natural flow of a discussion, even if it goes off at an angle.