Site Ratings & Reviews - critique welcome

Author

critique welcome

Bernhard Sturm

2005-01-24, 4:21 am

Hi Group
Please have a look at http://www.meaning.ch and tell me what you think
about it. Please be warned: this site is based on mambo CMS, hence does
not validate :-)

cheers
bernhard
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Spartanicus

2005-01-24, 12:29 pm

Bernhard Sturm <sturmnixspam@datacomm.ch> wrote:

>Please have a look at http://www.meaning.ch and tell me what you think
>about it. Please be warned: this site is based on mambo CMS, hence does
>not validate :-)

Comments on html only, no link to the stylesheet was supplied.

1) The logo should be marked up with as a level 1 header and the image's
alt content should be the text in the image.
2) The best place in the source for a bread crumb is directly below the
navigation, currently it placed awkwardly.
3) The form submit image should have appropriate alt content.
4) Same for other images.
5) The "Top of the page & To the homepage" links are not a paragraph.
6) Links that link to the same url ("To the homepage") are a nuisance,
same goes for the linked logo image.
7) Same for "Top of the page" type links, meant to be used by people
using AT software they are in fact nothing but a nuisance.
8) Font size in the search form field is to small.
9) Having to erase the "search..." text from the field first is another
nuisance, convey the function of the form by using a header.
10) <h1 class="moduletitle">Local News</h1> isn't the h1 for the home
page.
11) Neither is <h1 class="moduletitle">Global News</h1>, multiple h1's
on a page is rarely proper markup.
12) <div id="pathway"><p>You are here: <span
class="pathway">Home</span></p></div>, the outer div is superfluous,
style the <p> element.
13) <div class="clear"></div>, superfluous, set the clear property on
the next block level element that has actual content.
14) There seem to be to many nested divs, check if you really need that
many.
15) <li class='lne-title'>, inefficient class usage, you could have used
a descendant selector. Same applies to the links within that list.
16) class="", eh?

I've presumed that the transitional code, doctype and &'s in the urls
result from using Mambo.

--
Spartanicus

Bernhard Sturm

2005-01-24, 12:29 pm

Spartanicus wrote:
>
> Comments on html only, no link to the stylesheet was supplied.

stylesheet would have been easy to get ;-) but nevermind, thanks for the
good reply Sparta.
almost all your critics concerning meta-navigation was due to customers
insist (homepage links, top of page links, logo to homepage). It seems
as webdesigners do have a different understanding of what metanavigation
should serve than the ordinary user ;-)
>
> 1) The logo should be marked up with as a level 1 header and the image's
> alt content should be the text in the image.

the logo should no be marked up at all :-) this is a visual only. If
someone checks the site with a screen reader the title tag will be read,
but not the title tag, and then the logo (which would be disturbing).

> 2) The best place in the source for a bread crumb is directly below the
> navigation, currently it placed awkwardly.

according to
http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/.../breadcrumb.htm
breadcrumb close to the header of the page is most efficient. Under the
navigation, as you suggeted it, would be quite disturbing, as the
navigation will open sublinks on a very deep nested site, hence placing
the breadcrumb at variable positions below the navigation...

> 3) The form submit image should have appropriate alt content.
> 4) Same for other images.

The CMS does only put alt tags if the user enters a description to the
image. We have taught them to do it, but maybe not good enough.

> 12) <div id="pathway"><p>You are here: <span
> class="pathway">Home</span></p></div>, the outer div is superfluous,
> style the <p> element.

Just personal preferences. I like boxes to be boxes (hence divs to be
divs), paragraphs to be paragraphs. I rarely mix paragraphs into boxes.
I don't know if this is good CSS or bad, but I think according to the
document structure it should be okay this way.

> 13) <div class="clear"></div>, superfluous, set the clear property on
> the next block level element that has actual content.

That's true. This is something which is difficult to control within the
CMS, as content is separated from the template. But in general you are
right.

> 14) There seem to be to many nested divs, check if you really need that
> many.

I know... blame it to mambo :-)

> 15) <li class='lne-title'>, inefficient class usage, you could have used
> a descendant selector. Same applies to the links within that list.

true as well, but as the module can handle multiple different lists
(formatted differently) the class is needed there:

<ul>
<li class="author">Author</li>
<li class="lne-title">Title</li>
</ul>

> 16) class="", eh?

same here: the module allows custom CSS implementation. If the admin
doesn't create an internal CSS via the CMS back-end, the module writes a
class=""... sorry for that, but I have to blame mambo again :-)

>
> I've presumed that the transitional code, doctype and &'s in the urls
> result from using Mambo.

yes. A lot of the garbage stems from mambo. Mambo is NOT XHTML. I
tweaked it to be at least transitional.

cheers for the comments
bernhard

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Spartanicus

2005-01-24, 12:29 pm

Bernhard Sturm <sturmnixspam@datacomm.ch> wrote:

>
>the logo should no be marked up at all :-)

On *sub* pages the logo is decorative, I only looked at the homepage,
there "meaning.ch" definitely should be the h1.

>this is a visual only. If
>someone checks the site with a screen reader the title tag

Title attribute content, it's not what title should be used for.

>
>according to
>http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/.../breadcrumb.htm
>breadcrumb close to the header of the page is most efficient.

It says "bread crumb trails are most valuable as an accessory to a
site’s navigational scheme and are optimally located at the top of a web
page". The whole study only considered site interaction in the visual
domain, hence the comment relates to the visual placing, a bread crumb
should not precede the main content of a page, same applies to the
navigation. In 2d mode both navigation and a bread crumb trail *can* be
positioned on the top of a page.

Some mistakes from that page: " 2) it offers shortcut links for users to
jump to previously viewed pages without using the Back button". This is
incorrect, users may not have used any on the higher pages in the
hierarchy to get to the page they are viewing.

>Under the
>navigation, as you suggeted it, would be quite disturbing, as the
>navigation will open sublinks on a very deep nested site, hence placing
>the breadcrumb at variable positions below the navigation...

One of the primary functions of a bread crumb is to convey the hierarchy
of a site's structure. It acts as the "You are here" indicator that you
find on roadside maps outside of cities/towns. I presume that the main
navigation under which the bread crumb is located is limited to show
only the main sections, positioning a bread crumb beneath that which
contains levels below one of the main sections is not confusing.

--
Spartanicus

Bernhard Sturm

2005-01-24, 12:29 pm

Spartanicus wrote:
> Bernhard Sturm <sturmnixspam@datacomm.ch> wrote:
>
> On *sub* pages the logo is decorative, I only looked at the homepage,
> there "meaning.ch" definitely should be the h1.

we are talking here about consistency. consistency is the key for
usability on sites. If you drop the logo on sub pages how are yoiu going
to visually lead a user if he/she is arriving at the subpage from
another link (e.g. google) if the logo is missing? How do you tell them
what site they are on?
>
>
>
> Title attribute content, it's not what title should be used for.

Same goes here as above: consistency. If your title tag reads 'welcome
to the front page' then that's just utter nonsense, although it's
content related but meaningless for a search engine listing. So you have
to add some additional information about the entire site.

[color=darkred]
> It says "bread crumb trails are most valuable as an accessory to a
> site’s navigational scheme and are optimally located at the top of a web
> page". The whole study only considered site interaction in the visual
> domain, hence the comment relates to the visual placing, a bread crumb
> should not precede the main content of a page

I don't know. According to the usability experts at zeix.com a
breadcrumb should preced the content. But user experiences might be
different. That's just what we learn here, and what I have heard so far
from a lot of usability experts. You are a primer ;-)

> One of the primary functions of a bread crumb is to convey the hierarchy
> of a site's structure. It acts as the "You are here" indicator that you
> find on roadside maps outside of cities/towns. I presume that the main
> navigation under which the bread crumb is located is limited to show
> only the main sections, positioning a bread crumb beneath that which
> contains levels below one of the main sections is not confusing.

huuu... that's a hard one. So you are offering your visitors a
navigation. Now considering you are (as most users do) visually scan
your page from top to bottom and from left to right (I am talking about
westerners behaviour), then your visitor would first see the navigation
located on the left top side. Which is okay as it's important to
understand how one can take control over the sites hierarchy immediatly.
The visitor will then select an item from the navigation, and his/her
attention will be attracted to the content of the new loaded page
(because it was his/her decision to select another page, and the
navigation scheme is already introduced to him/her (note:consistency!))
I believe your breadcrumb below the navigation will then simply be
overlooked, because there is no need to scan below the navigation for
the user. The navigation serves for actively navigate through the site.
The 'you are here:' indicator has (according to my understanding) to be
close to the content. (I don't know if you have ever looked at such a
city map: the 'you are here' arrow is actually directly conected to the
content, and not somewhere else, like above the directory of all the
streets or below the list of all the point of interests :-)

Or didn't I understand you correct?

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Spartanicus

2005-01-24, 12:29 pm

Bernhard Sturm <sturmnixspam@datacomm.ch> wrote:

>
>we are talking here about consistency. consistency is the key for
>usability on sites. If you drop the logo on sub pages

Who said anything about dropping the logo? (not me) On the homepage a
logo text image should be marked up as the level 1 header with the text
as the alt content for the image. On sub pages the logo can still be
included, but as a decorative image, by placing the image in the html
with no alt content, as a css background image, or ideally inserted with
the css "content" property.

>
>Same goes here as above: consistency. If your title tag reads 'welcome to the front page'
>then that's just utter nonsense, although it's
>content related but meaningless for a search engine listing. So you have
>to add some additional information about the entire site.

I misunderstood you, I now see that you were referring to content marked
up with the title *element*. I thought you were referring to a title
attribute and misnaming it as a "tag", instead you were misnaming the
title element as a "tag" :-)

Why you referred to the page title is however still not clear to me, the
context was the currently incorrect h1 for the meaning.ch homepage.

>
>huuu... that's a hard one. So you are offering your visitors a
>navigation.

Providing a bread crumb bar for navigation is imo not a prime function,
the study you linked seems to confirm that not many people use it to
navigate. Typically bread crumb bars are additional/redundant for the
purpose of navigating. Conveying the hierarchy of a site's structure is
a function that a bread crumb bar provides regardless of whether or not
people use the links, this is imo the prime function given that no other
element on the page performs that function.

>Now considering you are (as most users do) visually scan
>your page from top to bottom and from left to right (I am talking about
>westerners behaviour), then your visitor would first see the navigation
>located on the left top side. Which is okay as it's important to
>understand how one can take control over the sites hierarchy immediatly.
>The visitor will then select an item from the navigation, and his/her
>attention will be attracted to the content of the new loaded page
>(because it was his/her decision to select another page, and the
>navigation scheme is already introduced to him/her (note:consistency!))
>I believe your breadcrumb below the navigation will then simply be
>overlooked, because there is no need to scan below the navigation for
>the user.

A bread crumb directly beneath the site's main navigation can hardly be
overlooked, but a bread crumb should imo be less prominent that either
the main navigation and the content. I size both my navbar and main
content text at 100%, I size bread crumb bar text at 85% or so. A bread
crumb bar should be redundant for the purpose of navigation.

--
Spartanicus

Bernhard Sturm

2005-01-24, 11:17 pm

Spartanicus wrote:
> Bernhard Sturm <sturmnixspam@datacomm.ch> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Who said anything about dropping the logo? (not me) On the homepage a
> logo text image should be marked up as the level 1 header with the text
> as the alt content for the image. On sub pages the logo can still be
> included, but as a decorative image, by placing the image in the html
> with no alt content, as a css background image, or ideally inserted with
> the css "content" property.

this is quite difficult to achieve with mambo where you have only one
template for the entire site. Therefore the logo (read header section)
must be treated everywhere in the same manner, regardless of sub-pages
or front-pages (as mambo does distinguish front-page from sub-pages but
not within the template. That's a drawback of mambo :-(.

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