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Re: Which should come first - navigation OR content?

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From: ben morrison
Date: Apr 25, 2006 6:50AM


On 4/25/06, Becky Tindle < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Up until now I have been putting the navigation before the content in the
> HTML source and providing a 'skip nav/skip to content link' to give the
> option to skip the navigation.
>
> More recently I have been working on a large site (already built and
> launched) that has been built with the content first in the flow of HTML and
> the navigation last - with a 'skip to navigation' link.
>
> I am not sure which I feel is better - I'm inclined to think that nav first,
> content after is more conventional thus far... maybe there is no better
> option of the two.

Recently the trend has been about placing content first and using CSS
etc to move the nav into place at the top - visually, the idea being
that this would be better for screen readers etc.

Recently I stumbled across some research that said since the majority
of sites have been built with Nav 1st then Content, it is more likely
to confuse most users - annoyingly I didnt bookmark the report.

ben.