User Interface Nitpick: Forward or Back?
by David Peralty on June 7th, 2006 
11 Comments
One of the things that are not consistant with all blogs out there is how we page through our archives. I use “previous entries” as my way of going back and “next entries” as a way of going forward, but for manay blogs, if I landed on page two of your blog, I would not know what to click to get me to the front page as there is no standard when it comes to this.
Some people like to reverse the whole previous and next links, meaning that as you click next, you are going further back into their archives, and if you click previous, you are going to more recent posts. That to me seems counter intuitive.
Elliot Back does this on his site and is a great example. If you started on his second page, would you know which link to click to get to the front page without looking at what URL the link is actually pointing to?
Should there be a standard in place? Which do you use, and why?
I like to use previous/next in reference to date/time because this is what blogging really revolves around. My previous links go back in date/time from what you are looking at and next links go forward in date/time. I never quite understood the other way of doing it. The home page of a blog is in reality the “end” in terms of date/time so how can you click next and get something after the end?
Ahem, you mean “Should THERE be a standard in place? Which do you use and why?
:)
Frankly? I’ve landed on page two of this blog and been completely confused by the page navigation. hee.. I agree with Nick, that in my mind “previous” calls to mind something that happened in the past while “next” refers to more future events. :)
Standardized navigation links on blogs? Next you’ll want to get XHTML compliance, and some kinda insane syndication conformity. Sounds like crazy-talk to me.
I use “previous entries” to direct readers to entries I have written, uh, well, previously. I do this because most of the time I’m wearing a nifty policeman style hat that has “Captain Obvious” embroidered on the front. That said, should there be a standard? I think thats basically overthinking the concept of the navigation link and blogging in general.
It seems to me that the concept of fast-forward/rewind on a blog is generally already there. The defaults on most blog systems are as we say and someone usually has to go out of their way to create the confusion mentioned… which possibly means they have a reason for having done so.
This is just like aruging whether turning the A/C up makes it colder or warmer in the room…
On the one hand, if you turn it up, it puts out more cold air, making the room cooler; but in fact you’re turning it down on the dial…
But on the other hand, if you turn it up, relative to degrees on the dial, you’re going to make it warmer in the room.
I say previous is previous. It’s the past. Relative to where you are now, the previous things in life are those that are older. If I click a link that says ‘Previous Entries’, I expect those from the past – the older ones. ‘Next Entries’ really isn’t particularly descriptive in my mind, but if it’s not a previous entry, what is it? Obviously in this case, if you put 2 and 2 together, next would mean newer.
Or we could just standardize the whole thing with “Older Entries” and “Newer Entries” and be done with it.
Actually Chris, I like that idea. There would be no previous and next confusion if we went towards Older Entries and Newer Entries.
I think that many blogs still think of their first page as the first page of a book, making next go to page two, and previous go to page one. This does not seem to be the majority though.
Thank you very very very much. Wish you luck and mercy from all the creatures around the world.
God bless this world
I made it like this:
| Top | « Previous Entries | Next Entries » | Home » Page 2 |
with breadcrumb built in, it works ok, i think.
I like to use previous/next in reference to date/time because this is what blogging really revolves around