Bloggers, I need your opinion! I pose a question that is beginning to really vex me from a user experience standpoint. I’m talking about “previous/next” navigation. Riveting, I realize, but I’m looking for answers and who better to ask than bloggers themselves?
As an old school blogger who started off using MT 1.something, I’m accustomed to the front page of the blog being the most current entries, obviously, and the link for a previous or older entries/entry being displayed on the bottom right of the entries with an arrow or similar indicating “to the right”. Like I’ve got on this blog.
Over the years, especially with the success of WordPress, I’m seeing it done in the opposite and it’s beginning to confuse me quite a bit while organizing client sites. In my opinion, you view the most current entry, then “flip back” like a reverse book to read older entries. And, to that end, the link by default would read something like “older entries” or “previous entries”, not next entries, which I’m seeing linked on the left with a left arrow. This seems to be WordPress’ default setting.
Uh… this doesn’t make sense to me. I’m not trying to be difficult… maybe that’s what the kids are doing these days. I don’t know. But if I’m looking at an individual entry, to me, the most recent entry would be “to the left” and should read “newer entry” or “next entry”. And vice versa. Why would I go to the right?
So, what do you think? What makes sense to you? What do you use on your blog? I want to make sure the navigation makes sense to users, regardless of what I think.
Thanks for your input!
Most recent entry first, at the top… scrolling down thru previous entries with a link at the bottom to more previous entries. That is how mine is (EE) and how I am used to seeing it.
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Thanks for replying. Actually, I’m trying to know whether you go left or right for older entries. EE’s pagination goes to the right, MT’s goes to the right, but people who use WordPress seem to prefer “older entries” with a left arrow, which just confuses the hell out of me.
This time around I customized a template instead of creating my own but the first thing I changed was the prev/new navigation. On my blog it’s “older entries” one the left and “newer entries” on the right. On my portfolio site it’s “next” and “previous”. To me it’s like navigating a physical book. Although the beginning of a book is in on the left, the end of the book is the actual goal. Moving forward…next page…is on the right.
I’ve been confused about this while navigating some sites, too, so good to know I’m not the only one wondering.
this has totally confused me as well. I’m used to it being the way you mention it. But I think that’s because it’s the way it’s “been” since the beginning of time…or maybe just the beginning of blogging platforms. The other way totally confuses me!
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I think it is personal preference as long as it is clear which way is which
It confuses me when older entries are to the right. I’ll use a book as an example to explain why. When I read, I read from left to right. The “new” pages are to my right, and the pages I have already read – the “old” pages if you will – are to the left.
In the past reading your blog often ended up with me going to an old entry thinking it is a new one, since I typically navigate in from a feed reader and not on the main page link. Hope that helps explain it, either way.
Those who used a book as an analogy… I get why you say that. That makes sense to me. But I guess, like mel said, it’s because the “reverse book” scenario is how it’s been in the past, since the ‘old days’, it’s hard for me to look at it another way, I guess.
It doesn’t look like it’s changing, so I suppose I’ll have to embrace it. But I like Riika’s suggestion that it’s just a matter of preference. I tend to use “newer” and “older” anymore instead of next/previous because of this. *sigh*
Ok, while tinkering with this on a client’s site, I think I came up with why the book theory doesn’t sit right with me:
The word “next” to me, means fresh, new, the next thing, current. Previous means in the past, old hat, passé. For example, “I previously said…” meaning, “something I said before or already”. Not “newer”, which if I go by WordPress’ example, is what they’re going for. I even have it like that on my own blog here because I used the default WordPress syntax and because that’s what seemed to be ‘the rage’.
But grammatically, it sticks in my craw. Am I the only one? Who decided on this ‘book’ analogy? I prefer the grammar-oriented solution.
Y’know… from a usability standpoint, the answer is neither. Since it’s not ‘evident and obvious’ which direction ‘previous’ and ‘next’ imply, I’d say using different labels entirely has to be the way to go.
And? Quite honestly, I have no idea what I, as a user, expect. I’m always just guessing when I hit the link. Or perhaps the expectation is set once I visit the homepage from which there can be no ‘newer’ link.
Let’s call them Bob and Susan.
Yeah, that totally gets me too! I get to the bottom and see “next entries” and I’m like “What? I thought I was reading the most current ones? What comes ‘next’?”
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Looks like you got it figured out already… I’m always late to the party [in meatspace, it's The Princess' fault]. Anyway, the book analogy is the best I can offer. I actually prefer to read the pages that way. Call me a curmudgeon.
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It’s not so much the ‘book’ aspect of it… it’s the verbiage. The grammar of it bugs me to no end. So, regardless of if it’s read in a book or reverse book format, previous should be old and next should be new. The great and powerful Oz has spoken.
I agree with you, it is very confusing to me. I get lost easily. I looked at it like a health record. When doctors put notes in our charts, they put the most recent notes on top so everything is in chronological order with the newest notes on the top.
I hope that did not confuse the situation. And I really agree about the terminology. “Previous” for me indicates something older and already done. Aand “Next” for me indicates something new.
If the page is set up to reflect the most recent entries first, it makes sense to have a link at the bottom that simply says, “Older Posts” or “Previous Entries”.
Totally. I think that WordPress made a grammatical error when they wrote the program initially. That’s my opinion, but looking at the tags, you have to label it the opposite of what the syntax indicates to get the results you really want.
< ?php previous_posts_link('newer entries'); ?>< ?php next_posts_link('older entries'); ?>It’s something that will probably never be fixed, but something to consider when creating themes, for those who are into that.
Anyone who places older blog entries to the left is a godless heretic and they don’t love the Lord.
Weird. When I first started reading blogs the whole backwards thing confused me. I wanted to read them left-to-right, like a book. But it seemed like the rest of the universe was against me. The standard was to place the older entries to the right instead of the left. I acclimated. Now, I refuse to switch back.
THANK YOU! I realize the book thing makes sense somewhat, but it just doesn’t jive when you consider the verbiage they’re using these days. I shake my fist at the whole thing.