Re: Secondary Nav Bar

[karderio <karderio gmail com>]

Hi :o)

On Fri, 2006-09-15 at 11:30 +0100, LeeTambiah wrote:
> It appeared to me yesterday, using the secondary navigation bar as a
> vertical component on the right hand side would be similar to the Ubuntu
> Site.
> 
> http://www.ubuntu.com/support
> 
> I think it works very well as a navigation system.
> 
> We need to decide on this component, are we going with the secondary bar
> on the right of page like Ubuntu or are we locating it below the primary
> navigation bar like YouTube?
> 
> I will go with the majority decision of course.

Although I personally have a completely subjective preference for a
vertical secondary navigation bar on the side, the one in the currently
planned mockup [1] would seem to work fine. No complaints, nice mockup.
Go for it ! (Not meaning to be pretentious, I'm not attaching much value
to my opinions here :o)

I'm unsure what the related links section is exactly, but I'm wondering
if it might be better at the end of a page. If this is the only thing in
the right column, it certainly would seem to waste space. Also these
links may be of more use after the visitor has read the page, unless
they are actually lost.

I'm wondering if the breadcrumb trail is not just duplicating browser
history functionality. Firefox certainly has a "go" menu, all be it
containing links from other sites also (apparently the next version will
also have a convenient "recently closed tabs" function). My worry is
that the trail could confuse non web savvy visitors. If a site specific
breadcrumb trail is all that useful, it would certainly seem to me to be
a feature missing from web browsers.

As a matter of interest, the sidebar on the Ubuntu website doesn't quite
behave consistently - on the support page (the one in your link), the
help section in the sidebar is permanently expanded, whereas on other
pages you click to expand the sidebar sections. Also some sections on
the sidebar lead to pages with a different sidebar, some even lead to
other sites. An example not to follow I think. With this type of
sidebar, I think it could be confusing for inexperienced web users to
see the "secondary" sidebar links, interspersed between the "primary"
links appear and disappear.

Love, Karderio.


[1]http://leetambiah.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/downloads/layoutPlanSecondary0.1.svg