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Re: Which should come first - navigation OR content?

for

From: Christian Heilmann
Date: Apr 25, 2006 8:50AM


> > Far too often in IT we seem to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.
>
> Christian, I think you are mixing up your syndromes ;)
> I thought Stockholm Syndrome relates to people who have been kidnapped
> and then come around to feel sympathy and support the
> kidnapper or their cause, a la Patty Hearst.

Yes, in this case a lot of developers pushed a lot of navigation in
the face of the user first for years and years and it is becoming a
standard. I remember SEO articles from 1999 talking about changing the
table order to show content first as a good idea. If we hadn't had the
navigation first and content later as a design pattern for years the
whole big discussion about skip links would've never happened.

As to the Stockholm Syndrome: You realise that a lot with Windows
Users. We are so used to random crashes, that we start defending the
system when people point that out to us. "Well, it happens, but that
is normal and there is nothing you can do".