Long time lurker, second time poster (if memory serves).

We launched our new library website yesterday, which is entirely built 
on LibGuides 2. You can see it here: http://library.acg.edu/

For simplicity’s sake we used only two templates:

     a full width template for single page guides (e.g., our home page).
     a content template that uses ~2/3 of the page for the content and 
~1/3 for guide navigation.

There are no dropdown menus anywhere, for the reasons people mentioned, 
nor do we use two columns for content. (Some of the landing pages use a 
small grid, but that’s about it.)

We use LG’s built-in second column wrapped around an `<aside>` and 
placed at the bottom of the main content for related info. Scroll to the 
bottom of this page to see what I mean: http://library.acg.edu/citations/apa

I decided to keep the navigation menu on the right to emphasize the main 
content. My guess is that this won’t work very well for sections with 
more narrative. My inspiration (GOV.uk) uses wizard navigation, which 
LG2 supports. That may be a way of handling this issue.

I put the site together with almost no usability testing. I’ll have to 
grab some students in the coming weeks and find out how bad things 
really are :)

You can see a slightly abstracted version of the content template, as 
well as other useful LG2 thingies in this gist:
https://gist.github.com/alehandrof/9f083aa03c287931d9f0

The design was written in Sass on top of an imported and customized 
Bootstrap 3.2. There's an option in the LG admin to disable the default 
Bootstrap and I only had to write a few hundred lines to override 
aspects of the default LG stylesheets. Because I built the design on top 
of Bootstrap there was very little tweaking necessary for the admin side 
to work properly.

Hope this helps,
Alex

--
Alex Armstrong
E-Resource/Reference Assistant
The American College of Greece Libraries, John S. Bailey Library
6 Gravias Street | GR 153 42 Agia Paraskevi | Athens, Greece
Phone: +30 210 600 9800 ext. 1274, 1267 | Fax: +30 210 601 7795
Email: [log in to unmask]



On 2014-09-19 12:31 AM, Joshua Welker wrote:
> That's a good idea. I changed the template using Bootstrap classes so that
> the sidebar will appear below the main column on small screens (< 1024px
> roughly). But I might consider hiding the side completely.
>
> Josh Welker
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Michael Schofield
> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2014 1:55 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
>
> I love your minimal template. We're experimenting with similar minimalism.
> If you all can't agree on the existence of the right column, you might
> compromise and use media queries to display: none; until the screen is
> sufficiently wide. E.g., 1140px so it will only pop on widescreen monitors
> and avoid almost all tablet orientations.
>
> Good work.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Joshua Welker
> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2014 2:43 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
>
> I am in the middle of building a very minimalist LibGuides 2.0 template to
> go with our new website. Here's the current status:
> http://ucmo.beta.libguides.com/test-guide.
>
> We are still torn on whether to have any side columns. We currently have a
> right column just for important site-wide information. We used the right
> rather than left with the rationale that it is not an essential navigation
> menu and that we didn't want it to be the first thing users notice. Content
> should come first. The fact that users will not focus heavily on the
> right-hand content is actually a good thing in this instance.
>
> I go back and forth on whether to scrap the side column. I am pretty adamant
> that there should only be one column for page content, although I am
> prepared to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
>
> Josh Welker
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brad
> Coffield
> Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2014 5:24 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
>
> 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]