Benjamin: "Unfortunately we have authors who want *three* columns plus
left-nav..." LOL

Margaret: Love the floating nav on that page. It's exciting that we'll be
able to leverage Bootstrap with our guides now. Moving the entire library
website to libguides CMS is looking more and more promising.


Some more thoughts:

I'm no UX expert but is it generally agreed that left-nav is the much
better choice? It seems like it to me. Given current web wide conventions
etc.

One big issue to switching to left-nav in v2 is the amount of work it's
going to take everyone to convert all guides to the new layout. Which is
one of those things that both shouldn't matter (when looking at it in a
principledness way - that is, "Whatever is best for the patrons! No matter
what!) but also does matter (in a practical way - that is, "OMG we are all
so busy being awesome").

But part of me, when looking at other people's guides and my own, wonders
if three columns isn't just a little TOO much for the user. How is one
supposed to scan the page? What's the prioritized information? For a couple
years now I've been eschewing three columns whenever possible. Do others
agree that three columns can be info overload?

Brad

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 4:32 PM, Benjamin Florin <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> We've been tinkering with our LibGuides template in preparation for an
> eventual redesign of our site and guides, e.g.:
>
>     http://libguides.bc.edu/libraries/babst/staff
>
> Some of our guide authors weren't happy with the LibGuides
> side-navigation's single-column limitation, so we made our own template,
> moved {{guide_nav}} off to a left column, and wrote our own styles to make
> the default top-nav display as left-nav. We've found that a 50/50 or 75/25
> split next to the left nav looks pretty good.
>
> Unfortunately we have authors who want *three* columns plus left-nav...
>
> In general the LibGuides templating has felt modern and easy to work with.
>
> Ben
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 3:18 PM, Brad Coffield <
> [log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'm finally diving into our Libguides v2 migration and I'm wondering if
> > anyone would be willing to share their experience/choices regarding
> > templating. (Or even some code!)
> >
> > I'm thinking left-nav is the way to go. Has anyone split the main content
> > column into two smaller columns? Done that with a column-width-spanning
> box
> > atop the main content area? Any other neato templates ideas?
> >
> > We are in the process of building a "style guide" for all libguides
> authors
> > to use. And also some sort of peer-review process to help enforce the
> style
> > guide. I'm thinking we are going to want to restrict all authors to
> > left-nav templates but perhaps the ideal solution would be to require
> > left-nav of all but to have a variety of custom left-nav templates to
> > choose from.
> >
> > Any thoughts are much appreciated!
> >
> > Warm regards,
> >
> > Brad
> >
> > --
> > Brad Coffield, MLIS
> > Assistant Information and Web Services Librarian
> > Saint Francis University
> > 814-472-3315
> > [log in to unmask]
> >
>



-- 
Brad Coffield, MLIS
Assistant Information and Web Services Librarian
Saint Francis University
814-472-3315
[log in to unmask]