However, with css we now have the ability to imitate frames in an accessible and search-engine friendly way for browsers that support it. So the question comes back to usability (and maybe aesthetics): wouldn't it be more user-friendly to always make the primary navigation available to users, no matter what part of the page they are looking at?
The key point here is "imitate" frames. As others pointed out, you have to go to some lengths to make an overflow page work cross-browser and avoid double scrollbars. The other issue is that in order to use a mousewheel you need to focus the overflow area first (or on some browsers you wouldn't be able at all). Showing a menu with position:fixed (and hack around with it for MSIE) is an option, and I have seen many implementations on blogs doing that. As with any usability idea and concern, there is one simple solution: Test it with your visitors or a group of totally disconnected testers. I found that a lot of times we solve problems with technology that aren't there at all. What I found increasingly with my readers though is that navigation repeated on the bottom of the screen works very well, as people do scan (read) through the whole document, scroll down and go from there. As others pointed out, too, the use of frames was most of the time not really a usability aspect (although it was handy to only have the content document refresh on a 28.8 modem) but ease of maintenance of the site and small document size. Usability is an interesting thing. On one project with a massive menu (which had to comply with a set taxonomy) we found that shifting the current section to the second position of the menu after a home link worked amazingly well although most usability gurus will flog you for messing with the menu order: http://www.onlinetools.org/tools/easynav/cnohome/index.php -- Chris Heilmann Book: http://www.beginningjavascript.com Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com Writing: http://icant.co.uk/ ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
