Re: Floating Navigation

Stephanie asks:

<<
I would like to hear some opinions on floating navigation. It is for a very
small website (8 pages total). It is implemented with CSS positioning as a
fixed element, so it behaves similarly to the navigation at
http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/ (on the right-side).
>>

If you don't need the screen real estate for other content, by all means
keep the navigation visible. This can only reduce demands on user's
short-term memory and the amount of mouse movement required to navigate
elsewhere. It is particularly useful if your navigation also reminds users
of their current location within the information hierarchy because it
provides location cues within peripheral vision. To maximize readability
columns of content shouldn't be wide anyway so most text-heavy pages simply
leave this area blank. Especially in this case, might as well use it for
navigation.

The only downside I can see is that you will invest effort in a solution
that many users will not benefit from because it will not work in IE <=6 and
other older browsers. Anyhow this is a minor point since the design is known
to degrade gracefully in older browsers. I hope that IE 7's greater support
for standards will mean it supports this type of design.

I'm curious to know your experience using this design as I'm considering
using it myself, so let us know how it goes.

Howard

---------------------------------

|  H o w a r d   K i e w e  |

User Experience Consultant
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Quebec, Canada  H4C 1L7

Tel:  (514) 485-6373
Cell: (514) 963-6373


-----Original Message-----
From: ACM SIGCHI WWW Human Factors (Open Discussion)
[mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Stephanie Brenton
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 12:01 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Floating Navigation

I would like to hear some opinions on floating navigation.

It is for a very small website (8 pages total). It is implemented with
CSS positioning as a fixed element, so it behaves similarly to the
navigation at http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/ (on the
right-side).

Unlike the example above, my navigation would be on the left. For
older browsers where this is not supported, it is absolutely
positioned (so that it moves off screen as do the rest of the
contents). Of course, there would be additional navigation (contextual
and Next/Previous links at the bottom of every page).

Pros and Cons as I see them...

Pros:
* I like that the floating makes the navigational menu available in
the same spacial location no matter how far the user scrolls downward.
* Users do not need to scroll back to the top of the screen if they
are below the fold and want to access the menu.

Cons:
* It only works in older browsers
* Space must be reserved for the menu so that it does not overlap
other content on the page. (There is not much content on this site.
Header on top, navigation on the left, middle column is text and a
third column for a vertical flickr badge.)

Am I missing anything?
Can anyone point me to guidelines for web interfaces that discourage
fixed positioning using CSS? (I have been criticized for using this
technique).

Thanks in advance,
Stephanie

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