Preserved Topic: Link Placement

Here is question I have about the use of links on a web site. If you were designing an informational site and you have say 4 or 5 sections (location, events, general info, etc) which would have 3-5 sub sections, would you make a separate section just for the links, or have the links related to each section be a sub section of that section?

A lot of times I see a huge list of links on a site and I just kind of glaze over unless something really catches my eye. I want to emphasize the links and their use and this seems like a good way to do it. But I ask because I haven't really seen this type of "navigation" employed before and I am wondering if I am missing some obvious reason not to do it this way.

thanks for your thoughts

Can you just calrify - which way do you *want* to do it?

There are countless methods for setting up navigation like this...it all depends on the specifics - what is the purpose of each link, and what is it relevant to? ...and so on.....

well I like the idea of a list of links that are relevant to each section, instead of links being its own section. It seems a more direct and efficient way (for the user) to organize the links. Because it is an informational site, there won't be any "oh this is interesting but not really related" type links.

This is what I am planning on doing, but was wondering if there is a drawback to this method that I am missing as I cannot recall seeing links organized this way on any site.

No, I don't see any drawback to that method at all. On the contrary, a links page with all the links thrown together is often a much less effective way of doing it.
The user should be able to go the section which interests them and find relavant links there. You may want to add a sitemap page to ensure that the user can easily find what they want if they are not sure what links might be included in what section. Sitemaps are good

considering the raised points, threep adds his two cents worth:
"it is a really good idea to have the relevant link near - you guessed it - the relevant content. if it is merely a nifty link you found, i guess it only belongs in the links section... but if a person went to your clothing material site to find out about the latest lycra/leather hybrid, and can click on a related link from the leather/lycra hybrid section, that makes great sense, and your site will become a valuable (bondage) tool.
one additional feature you could have is a 'featured links' page, which lists (categorised, one would hope) all the external links that you have featured on your site. this is particularly useful when someone remembers that they got to this really good site from yours, but weren't sure where exactly in your content the link was."
adding up the value of his statement, threep finds it only totals 1.5 cents. 'but hey', he thinks, 'that's what rounding is for.'

Checkerboard navigation is pretty standard and everyone is familiar with it I think. Main categories across the top, further into a category you have the links to do with that category on the left column, that kinda deal... people like organization when they're looking for something.

Jason

Well I agree folks like organization when looking for stuff, it just seems I did not see it very often and was wondering if there was a reason that relevant external links seem to be lumped in a big mishmash. checkerboard navigation? i'll put that in my lingo brainspace.

thanks

JKMabry: I'm not sure what you mean by the term "checkerboard navigation". Could you please describe it a little more?

wcr one: First I'm not sure if you are talking about links to other sites or links within your own site. I assume you are asking about links within a site.

The way you organize the links depends a lot on how much information you have. If you have tons and tons of information (such as in a Sears-Roebuck catalog) it seems to me that you want to try to organize the links in separate sections but with lots and lots of cross links between sections. You want to try to avoid turning the site into a guessing game for someone looking for a particular piece of information.

The viewer of your site should be able to think about finding a Pink Silk Shirt with Orange Tassels and Sequins with out having to guess whether you filed it under Silk, Shirt, Tassels, Sequins, OR Orange.

This is the reason people started putting Tables of Contents and Indices on books. We run into much the same problem when designing an information web site, but I think the possibilities for cross referencing and ease of use are much more numerous with a web site than a book

uh, I thought it was common terminology but after a search I found out that this is not so. I seemed to run into the term quite a lot whenI first started web designing but now it seems to have disappeared. Sorry to imply that it was an everyday thing when it isn't

Example of what I was talking about:
Across the top 'header' area of the page say you have 4 main directories:
<B>overview

Just to clear this up, I am talking about links to other sites. this site is for my curling (as in rocks and brooms and yelling not "how does my hair look") club. There are sections for events (local and worldwide), beginners, club information, etc. For further info on a lot of these subjects, I have quite a list of links to external sites (tutorials, rules, strategy, championships, etc) but felt they would get lost if they were jumbled into a generic links page. So instead I was planning on a links sub section for each section with links that are just relative to that section.

For example:
General Curling Info
-History
-Strategy
-Terminology
-Links for general info

does this make navigational sense? if you can think of a site that uses this kind of link navigation please pass it along as I would like to see how well it flows.

thanks



[This message has been edited by wcr one (edited 06-07-2001).]