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Posted by Jukka K. Korpela on 07/25/06 21:36
Adrienne Boswell <arbpen@yahoo.com> scripsit:
> Seems to me I answered a post about this... but I need to convince my
> boss of some things, so I am coming to alt.html.
I'm afraid I don't quite follow. Are you referring to some previous
discussions? And what's the general context that the question relates to?
URL?
> My idea:
> <h2>Accessories Stores in Glendale</h2>
Is this supposed to be the main heading of a page? Why is it <h2> then and
not <h1>?
What's the nature of the page? Is it dynamically generated in response to a
search request, as it seems to me?
> <div class="youarehere">You are here - Home > Categories >
> Stores/Accessories</div>
Home of what? How much is Stores divided by Accessories? I mean more exactly
than being smaller than Categories. (I hope you get my idea: this kind of
"breadcrumb trail" isn't quite self-explanatory and unambiguous.)
> <table>
> <caption><span class="results">There are 10 products and 100
> merchants</span><span class="pagination">Page 1 2 3 4
> Next</span></caption>
> ....
> </table>
What have you got in "...", which has no counterpart in the alternative
design? Or is the description just somewhat incomplete, so that the other
design has <table>...</table>, too?
Do you want the caption to be rendered as
There are 10 products and 100 merchantsPage 1 2 3 4 Next
when styling is off? It seems that you would need some block level elements
inside <caption>, and this suggests that it's not really a table caption,
logically. But if you use such an approach, I would at least suggest putting
a <br> between the <span> elements.
> Her idea:
> <h2>Accessories Stores in Glendale</h2>
> <div class="results">There are 10 products and 100 merchants</div>
> <div class="tableheader"><div class="youarehere">You are here - Home >
> Categories > Stores/Accessories</div><div class="pagination">Page 1 2
> 3 4 Next</div></div>
>
> Opinions? Which makes more sense?
It's not really a table header, or a table caption, is it? So I wouldn't
make it <caption>, and I wouldn't use a class name like "tableheader".
I don't see much difference between the designs, except technically. But
regarding the order of the result summary, the breadcrumb trail, and the
"pagination" links, I'd vote for putting first things first. The most
important information to the user is the summary of the results.
I think the real problems are:
- Is the breadcrumb needed at all? If present, should it be _after_ the
results? (Should a person using a speech browser hear the breadcrumb text,
probably ">" read as "greater than", on each and every result page when
doing a lot of queries?)
- Should the links Page 1 2 3 4 Next appear there or after the first part of
results? (Wouldn't a user normally want to read the results first, then
perhaps proceed to other parts?)
- Is the "Page 1 2 3 4 Next" style really a good one? Many search engines
use it, but why? Normally the "Next" (or "Next results") links is the only
link that is really needed. At least I would put it _first_. (Consider a
person using the tab key to move from one link to the next. Shouldn't he
first get to the link he really needs?)
I would recommend something like
<h1>Search results: Accessories Stores in Glendale</h1>
<div class="summary">Found 10 products and 100 merchants.</div>
<table>
.... (actual results here; could be written as <ol> too)
</table>
<div class="next"><a rel="next" href="...">Next set of results</a></div>
If you use a <caption>, it should be a caption for the _table_, presumably
the first set of results (hits), so if it mentions some numbers, they should
relate to those results, not the entire collection of results.
--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
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