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Re: Same-Page Navigation Links

for

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Mar 9, 2005 8:14AM

On Wed, 9 Mar 2005, intern.wincog wrote:

> I'm trying to look into some design theory on same-page navigaton links,
> where they can improve accessability and usability, and where they can be
> confusing and detrimental in these areas.

The short answer is that they are useless or harmful, unless they express
logical references (logical links), like a reference to another section
on a page. Admittedly some people might be used to making use of
"back to the top" links for example, but such behavior should _not_
be encouraged by inserting such links. Same-page links are not ubiquous
and will never be, so people still need to learn to use their browsers,
or find themselves lost on many (actually, most) pages.

> 1 "back to the top"-type links must be helpful for folks on PDAs viewing
> looong HTML pages.

No, any decent browser has a simple way to get to the start of the page.
Don't prevent people from having motivation to learn that simple way.

> I recently tried to make more meaningful links-- instead
> of a "back to the top" after a small section, I wrote something like "More
> [Main Subject] Topics/Options", but think this might confuse users with an
> expectation for more info on that specific sub-topic

Indeed. "Back to the top" is confusing, but such attempts would make it
even more confusing.

(Top of what? If you have never used Web before - and every day, a large
number of new users learn to use the Web - there would be little reason
to assume that "Back to the top" really means jumping to the start of the
document being currently viewed, as opposite to, say, the topmost (main)
page of a site.)

> 2 same-page navigaton links might be disorienting for screen readers because
> they might indicate travel to a new page instead of just within the same
> one, thus messing with people's expectations

In any case they are a disruption in any linear consumption of a page.
This includes listening to the page in "links reading" mode and
moving from one link to another using the tab key.

> 3 same-page links can also be disorienting to visitors using graphical
> browsers,

Right, though for most "normal" users, they are just useless.

In printed documents, same-page navigation looks particularly foolish.
Admittedly this can be prevented in a simple way using CSS, but most pages
that use same-page link don't even take care of this.

--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/