[Sigia-l] Isn't that horse dead yet? (was: "meta-"navigation and before that: global navigation meta navigation)

[Eric Scheid]

On 6/6/05 7:01 AM, "Steve Krug" <skrug at mindspring.com> wrote:
> - It's a very good idea to separate these apparatus/furniture/moving parts
> from the content categories. This makes for two smaller, more approachable,
> and easier to scan lists.
> 
> - The distinction between the two lists should be clear. But this can be as
> simple as
>
>                                                Util-1   Util-2    Util-3
> Category-1  Category-2  Category-3  Category-4  Category-5
> 
> or
> 
> Category-1
> Category-2
> Category-3
> Category-4 
> Category-5
>          [small amount of white space]
> Util-1
> Util-2
> Util-3
> Util-4

Ah-hah, an illuminating illustration ... but what do you call that group of
even smaller links scattered across the bottom of the page, that bunch which
is likely to include links to 'privacy policy', 'copyright', 'colophon',
'accessibility statement', 'rss feeds', 'conditions', 'contact us', 'about',
'feedback', 'jobs', 'advertise with us', 'help', 'company info', 'site
developed by x', 'plugin requirements' ... and so on.

Those example links were all pulled from real websites, all from the same
place ... a group of teensy links at the bottom of the page. Sometimes a
copy of the global navigation was layered just above them too, in similarly
low-profile styling, especially if the prominent styled global navigation
was styled with graphics and pull downs and the like.

The distracting thing is that that group does include some links which also
appear in the global or utility navigation. Distracting, but nonetheless
doesn't cause all the footer links in the world to go 'poof' as if the
category didn't exist.

I've been tempted to call them 'policy links', but there are many members
that don't fit that rubric.

I suppose we could call them 'about-ness links' since the word 'meta' seems
to cause everyone to break out in a rash. 'about-ness links' ... I can see
Ziya foaming at the mouth already.

e.