Mar 3, 2010
1 note
Previous & Next We read letters, words, lines and pages in a book from left to right. However, with a blog, someone is writing a “book” and the homepage is where the author is up to in writing the book, so the reader starts at the “back” of the book. To progress forward and read more, the reader has to go backwards through the book. That’s why navigating pages is a problem on a blog. In the screenshot above, tell me where clicking on either of those buttons will take me. If I click “Previous,” will I see newer posts or older posts? “Previous” could refer to the time of publication (“posts published previously,” indicating older posts) or to a direction (left, back towards where you started, meaning back towards the homepage, towards newer posts). It could refer to your history (things you were looking at previously) or the blog’s (things published previously). It’s ambiguous. The solution: don’t be ambiguous. Somewhere, indicate that “hey, this link goes to older stuff, and this link goes to newer stuff.” Some people make the word “older” the actual link, some have arrows be the link and have “older” be the title-text. Whatever you do, don’t just write the words “previous” and “next.” (Alternatively, you could do away with pages altogether and navigate in a Tumblr-esque endless scrolling manner.) My name’s Scott, and I took 1 (one) whole usability course at university.

Previous & Next

We read letters, words, lines and pages in a book from left to right. However, with a blog, someone is writing a “book” and the homepage is where the author is up to in writing the book, so the reader starts at the “back” of the book.

To progress forward and read more, the reader has to go backwards through the book. That’s why navigating pages is a problem on a blog.

In the screenshot above, tell me where clicking on either of those buttons will take me. If I click “Previous,” will I see newer posts or older posts? “Previous” could refer to the time of publication (“posts published previously,” indicating older posts) or to a direction (left, back towards where you started, meaning back towards the homepage, towards newer posts). It could refer to your history (things you were looking at previously) or the blog’s (things published previously). It’s ambiguous.

The solution: don’t be ambiguous. Somewhere, indicate that “hey, this link goes to older stuff, and this link goes to newer stuff.” Some people make the word “older” the actual link, some have arrows be the link and have “older” be the title-text. Whatever you do, don’t just write the words “previous” and “next.” (Alternatively, you could do away with pages altogether and navigate in a Tumblr-esque endless scrolling manner.)

My name’s Scott, and I took 1 (one) whole usability course at university.

  1. scottjacksonx posted this
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