I was just curious in general. I'm always interested in data on web
usability.

Josh Welker


-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alex
Armstrong
Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2014 12:34 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav

I was actually a bit coy in my previous post. Our old site was reasonably
battle-hardened for usability. It's not like we transitioned from
three-column layouts and guides with three rows of tabs or anything.

I'm still trying to come up with tasks for testing. I suspect a lot of the
big stuff will be OK while a lot of the small stuff will be off.
It's been really hard to test the latter. (And there is a glitches in our
analytics so I'm also flying a bit blind.)

Is there something in particular you're wondering about?

Alex


On 09/19/2014 07:50 PM, Joshua Welker wrote:
> Nice job. I like the simplicity. Let me know how the usability testing
> goes.
>
> Josh Welker
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
> Of Alex Armstrong
> Sent: Friday, September 19, 2014 10:28 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
>
> 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]