Are there any rules for what SHOULD be in the webpage footer? (i.e. copyright, phone numbers, address, etc.)
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No rules. Just good design practice.
D
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It’s like the rules of grammar – you don’t have to follow them, but it
helps you to be understood when you do. When you decide to break rules – of
grammar or design – why you do it is most important. Are trying to be
artsy and creative, or simply lazy and ignorant?
If you take all the words I’m writing here and rearrange them randomly they
will no longer have the context I intend for them, and their meaning as I
intend it will be lost. Even emotional content, like music, when randomized
out of context becomes meaningless noise, incapable of moving anyone
(except to leave).
The same is true for design, if you randomly distribute your content on the
page, you may still come out with a pretty page but it will have no meaning
beyond that. So, headlines tend to precede bylines which appear above
articles that sometimes end in footnotes, and so on. People generally
respond best to outlines and hierarchies. You have to look at your content
critically and decide what belongs together, and what should be separate,
what is the main topic and what is supporting – and then ask yourself “how
will people see and understand this?” Then, the page structure will begin
to make sense. If it’s more important that users have contact or copyright
info right away, then maybe those should not be at the bottom of the page
in a little font.
So the one big rule I would focus on is knowing what your content is about
and then finding ways to give users better access to it.
One of my favorite re-reads on the subject:
–
Ernie Simpson
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Thanks guys. Good info.
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