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From: Rene Rivera (grafik.list_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-12-01 02:28:33


Rob Stewart wrote:
> -- The chevron icons do nothing for me. They aren't indicative
> of the section they call out and there are only three on the
> page. If they differed for each section, they might provide
> value, or if they were more visually useful, they might be
> better. As suggestions for the latter, you could use drop
> caps in the headings instead of icons, per se, or you could
> use a partial box:
>
> | Welcome to Boost.org!
> +-----------
>
> The partial box would be sized to be just a portion of the
> width of the headings (and the same width for all of them).

They are indicative of a section, nothing else. They call attention to a
section without overloading the text itself, as the text is already
bolder. It's good that there are only three, or two, as otherwise they
would loose their indication power, they stand out more the fewer there
are. As pointed out in the early designs making such indicators more
visually meaningful was described as distractions from the text. Doing
the design you suggests would clash with the rest of the design. The one
alternative would be to use the same design element as that of the menu
box and the search box on the header like:

   Welcome to Boost.org!
  ----------------------
   |
   | The Boost web site...
       emphasis is on libraries...

But that would dilute the meaning of those box lines away from the
navigation boxes they currently delineate.

> -- I liked Jeff's suggestion of a "toolbar" of most frequent
> links across the top. I'm sure there can be some argument as
> to what the most frequently used links are, but if the list is
> kept short, it shouldn't be too hard.

Must have missed that suggestion :-\

I don't think there's any argument as to what the most frequently used
links are. They are all the links that are currently on the left
navigation menu and in the search box. If something is not popular
enough it will never get a place on the navigation menu. So duplicating
some of those someplace else in the page would only help to clutter the
page and confuse visitors.

-- 
-- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything
-- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com
-- rrivera/acm.org - grafik/redshift-software.com - 102708583/icq

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