Sep 12 2008 at 1:56pm
Chunky footers: yay or nay?
The “chunky footer” is becoming a big trend in web design. This is a footer that is much bigger than what was traditionally used, often containing several sets of links and other information. Take a look at this flikr set for some examples.
Do you find these to be effective? I think from a design perspective they solve a lot of problems. Get a lot of links on the home page without cluttering the main interface.
The problem I find is that as a user I often miss them entirely. On Jason Santa Maria’s site it took me several visits before I even noticed it was there. Why? Because I didn’t scroll that far (on the actual articles there are often many comments, making the pages quite long. Most users wouldn’t read all those comments.)
What about my home page? Will people notice the Recent Posts block at the bottom? Will they think to scroll past the white? Granted, I was intentional in what I put there vs. what I put on the sidebar. It’s not exactly essential stuff.
Usability experts have found that users have learned to scroll (early usability research found that users wouldn’t scroll past the fold). But, do they scroll the whole page? Prioritizing Web Usability, Jacob Nielsen points out that users often won’t scroll further if they get the visual impression that there is no more content on the page. If users assume that the navigation ends with the top or left navigation bar, will they try looking further down for more links?
What do you think?
Adam H September 15th, 2008 at 7:19 am
Yaaay! I’ve used them before on my sites. Works pretty well and removes a lot of clutter from the side bar.
Torbjørn Lunde September 24th, 2008 at 6:56 am
I would be carefull with using them for anything important.
I think they work as a kind of index, overview or sitemaps(if the site is simple enough). I think it some cases having some information(usually links) in footer than on the sides could make the sites less cluttered.
On the sites I’m involved with we only have tiny footers that we use for sister-sites links.
I think it’s best to see the situation, the site and what it needs.
And no, I did not see the “Recent Posts” untill you told me. Strangeley I’ve noticed footer bars on many other websites. I think it seem to work on short pages.
You shouldn’t listen to me though, I’m no Nielsen, I’m just a graphic designer trainee.