Long time lurker, second time poster (if memory serves).
We launched our new library website yesterday, which is entirely built
on LibGuides 2. You can see it here: http://library.acg.edu/
For simplicity’s sake we used only two templates:
a full width template for single page guides (e.g., our home page).
a content template that uses ~2/3 of the page for the content and
~1/3 for guide navigation.
There are no dropdown menus anywhere, for the reasons people mentioned,
nor do we use two columns for content. (Some of the landing pages use a
small grid, but that’s about it.)
We use LG’s built-in second column wrapped around an `<aside>` and
placed at the bottom of the main content for related info. Scroll to the
bottom of this page to see what I mean: http://library.acg.edu/citations/apa
I decided to keep the navigation menu on the right to emphasize the main
content. My guess is that this won’t work very well for sections with
more narrative. My inspiration (GOV.uk) uses wizard navigation, which
LG2 supports. That may be a way of handling this issue.
I put the site together with almost no usability testing. I’ll have to
grab some students in the coming weeks and find out how bad things
really are :)
You can see a slightly abstracted version of the content template, as
well as other useful LG2 thingies in this gist:
https://gist.github.com/alehandrof/9f083aa03c287931d9f0
The design was written in Sass on top of an imported and customized
Bootstrap 3.2. There's an option in the LG admin to disable the default
Bootstrap and I only had to write a few hundred lines to override
aspects of the default LG stylesheets. Because I built the design on top
of Bootstrap there was very little tweaking necessary for the admin side
to work properly.
Hope this helps,
Alex
--
Alex Armstrong
E-Resource/Reference Assistant
The American College of Greece Libraries, John S. Bailey Library
6 Gravias Street | GR 153 42 Agia Paraskevi | Athens, Greece
Phone: +30 210 600 9800 ext. 1274, 1267 | Fax: +30 210 601 7795
Email: aarmstr...@acg.edu
On 2014-09-19 12:31 AM, Joshua Welker wrote:
That's a good idea. I changed the template using Bootstrap classes so that
the sidebar will appear below the main column on small screens (< 1024px
roughly). But I might consider hiding the side completely.
Josh Welker
-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of
Michael Schofield
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2014 1:55 PM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
I love your minimal template. We're experimenting with similar minimalism.
If you all can't agree on the existence of the right column, you might
compromise and use media queries to display: none; until the screen is
sufficiently wide. E.g., 1140px so it will only pop on widescreen monitors
and avoid almost all tablet orientations.
Good work.
-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of
Joshua Welker
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2014 2:43 PM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
I am in the middle of building a very minimalist LibGuides 2.0 template to
go with our new website. Here's the current status:
http://ucmo.beta.libguides.com/test-guide.
We are still torn on whether to have any side columns. We currently have a
right column just for important site-wide information. We used the right
rather than left with the rationale that it is not an essential navigation
menu and that we didn't want it to be the first thing users notice. Content
should come first. The fact that users will not focus heavily on the
right-hand content is actually a good thing in this instance.
I go back and forth on whether to scrap the side column. I am pretty adamant
that there should only be one column for page content, although I am
prepared to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Josh Welker
-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Brad
Coffield
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2014 5:24 PM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] LibGuides v2 - Templates and Nav
Benjamin: "Unfortunately we have authors who want *three* columns plus
left-nav..." LOL
Margaret: Love the floating nav on that page. It's exciting that we'll be
able to leverage Bootstrap with our guides now. Moving the entire library
website to libguides CMS is looking more and more promising.
Some more thoughts:
I'm no UX expert but is it generally agreed that left-nav is the much better
choice? It seems like it to me. Given current web wide conventions etc.
One big issue to switching to left-nav in v2 is the amount of work it's
going to take everyone to convert all guides to the new layout. Which is one
of those things that both shouldn't matter (when looking at it in a
principledness way - that is, "Whatever is best for the patrons! No matter
what!) but also does matter (in a practical way - that is, "OMG we are all
so busy being awesome").
But part of me, when looking at other people's guides and my own, wonders if
three columns isn't just a little TOO much for the user. How is one supposed
to scan the page? What's the prioritized information? For a couple years now
I've been eschewing three columns whenever possible. Do others agree that
three columns can be info overload?
Brad
On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 4:32 PM, Benjamin Florin <benjamin.flo...@gmail.com>
wrote:
We've been tinkering with our LibGuides template in preparation for an
eventual redesign of our site and guides, e.g.:
http://libguides.bc.edu/libraries/babst/staff
Some of our guide authors weren't happy with the LibGuides
side-navigation's single-column limitation, so we made our own
template, moved {{guide_nav}} off to a left column, and wrote our own
styles to make the default top-nav display as left-nav. We've found
that a 50/50 or 75/25 split next to the left nav looks pretty good.
Unfortunately we have authors who want *three* columns plus left-nav...
In general the LibGuides templating has felt modern and easy to work with.
Ben
On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 3:18 PM, Brad Coffield <
bcoffield.libr...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi all,
I'm finally diving into our Libguides v2 migration and I'm wondering
if anyone would be willing to share their experience/choices
regarding templating. (Or even some code!)
I'm thinking left-nav is the way to go. Has anyone split the main
content column into two smaller columns? Done that with a
column-width-spanning
box
atop the main content area? Any other neato templates ideas?
We are in the process of building a "style guide" for all libguides
authors
to use. And also some sort of peer-review process to help enforce
the
style
guide. I'm thinking we are going to want to restrict all authors to
left-nav templates but perhaps the ideal solution would be to
require left-nav of all but to have a variety of custom left-nav
templates to choose from.
Any thoughts are much appreciated!
Warm regards,
Brad
--
Brad Coffield, MLIS
Assistant Information and Web Services Librarian Saint Francis
University
814-472-3315
bcoffi...@francis.edu
--
Brad Coffield, MLIS
Assistant Information and Web Services Librarian Saint Francis University
814-472-3315
bcoffi...@francis.edu
