A common feature on every blog you see is a pair of links at the bottom of the page that let you move forward and backward in the stream of posts. Typically on the first page it’s just one link to previous entries. But on the second page there is a link for previous entries and for next entries. The “previous” link continues to take you “backwards” in the post stream. But the “next” link is tempting as that’s the natural thing we are trained to want to click. There’s this weird discordant moment. Maybe the accidental extra page views amount to enough so publishers value the confusion. But I know as a user I find it annoying. I surveyed three popular blogs (as well as our own) to see who does what.

TechCrunch and ValleyWag both have the confusing terminology. Here at Jackson Fish I think we have better terminology using “older” and “newer” which I think syncs with what’s in people’s heads as they browse past blog posts (in either direction). My favorite treatment however was boingboing. They take advantage of the fact that they break their pages up by the day so they can use the calendar to show where you’re at, where you’ve been, and where you want to go. They even use “day earlier” and “day later” descriptions of each choice which gives things a kind of narrative quality. It ends up a touch busy, but I think nice overall.

I realize this is a small user interface issue in the grand scheme of things, but I think that a few of these small issues can add up to an annoying experience. And conversely, getting these details right can make users of a site feel right at home.

UPDATE: Had another thought on this. A nice visualization to reinforce the navigation would be the new column of entries sliding in from either side depending on which direction the user was traveling in the stream. Of course, it would have to be done in a way that didn’t break the back button, and resulted in you starting at the top of the next or previous earlier or later column of entries.