A Philosophical Question About Hyperlinks

By Shamus Posted Thursday Sep 3, 2009

Filed under: Random 120 comments

Screw that “one hand clapping” business, here is the question I want answered:

When you get to the bottom of the page on a blog and they have links to go to earlier entries in the archives, the link usually has an arrow pointing either to the right or left. Which is correct? And should this link be called “prev” or “next”?

Blog entries are posted in reverse-chronological order. This seems to confuse people. Do we reverse EVERYTHING, then? If we think of each group of posts in the archive as pages in a book, then which way is it read? Are new pages added to the beginning of the book, or the end?

Destructoid has a link at the bottom which points left and says “Next”. It links to earlier entries.

The same link on my site points to the right and says “Prev”.

I’ve seen blogs that use other combinations, such as a rightward “next” or a leftward “prev”.

Without worrying about the “correct” or “standard” way of doing things or what the “default” behavior is, just picture it in your mind. Which makes the most sense to you and feels intuitive?

 


From The Archives:
 

120 thoughts on “A Philosophical Question About Hyperlinks

  1. Ergonomic Cat says:

    Left pointing arrow <- to indicate the Previously typed entry.

    From the beginning of time, left on the net has meant back in time.

  2. Gary says:

    I have noticed this too and been equally confused and annoyed by how some people handle it.

    I personally prefer it to read like a book, that is, you move to the right. Even with it in reverse chronilogical order. The first page is the first page, no matter “When” it happened and all subsequent pages should be to the right of the first page.

    As to the names, I prefer “Older ->” and “<- Newer”, or something similar.

  3. Zeta Kai says:

    I second E.C.’s opinion. That’s how the browser always works, so that’s what I expect from a page within my browser.

    For some reason, Gary seems to be contradicting himself.

  4. Roy says:

    Anything else just seems silly to me. We read left to right in English, which means, to me, that earlier things (previous) are on the left, and newer things (what is coming up) will be on the right.

  5. Wobbler says:

    The previously made (i.e. older) entry on the bottom left, and any later entries on the right, so time flows L-to-R as Ergonomic Cat says. But I really like the lack of ambiguity with older/newer names as Gary says; so to sum up: I would say this

    <-Older Newer->

  6. Gary says:

    Zeta Kai,

    I know, it is a quandry…. but for some reason it feels right-er to me that way.

    It is really quite inexplicable :D

    1. Shamus says:

      Older and newer is a really good idea. Next time I tinker with the theme I will do that.

      1. Shamus says:

        I didn’t want to put my own answer in the post because I didn’t want to influence the answers people gave. So I’ll do it in the comments here. The thing with “left for older” means that page one is:

        5
        4
        3
        2
        1

        And page two is

        9
        8
        7
        6

        Now, if you read it like a book, you’ll read them in this order 5 4 3 2 1 9 8 7 6.

        If right is older, then page one is

        9
        8
        7
        6

        And page two is:

        5
        4
        3
        2
        1

        And if you read them like a book you get: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  7. Abnaxis says:

    In all honesty, whenever I have taken a dive through your archives the right arrow on the Previous entries link has thrown me for a loop for a good ten seconds when I get past the second page.

    It’s weird–I understand the logic of putting it there, and it makes more sense than “left previous” when I reason it out, but it instinctively makes my brain contort when it comes to actually using the interface.

  8. Fede says:

    In my mind i picture past pages on the left, so i’d say
    <—- Previous

  9. Bob says:

    Left is for previous, older entries, just like a book (or a diary).

  10. Narkis says:

    I’ll add my vote to what most people say: Left for previous entries.

  11. Seb says:

    I’d say either reverse everything: newest post on top of the page, “” on the bottom, like you add a note on a pile of notes;
    or use the “natural” order all the time, more like posts in a forum thread.

    I’m all for consistency

  12. Athanasius says:

    A left-pointing ‘prev’ link for older pages/articles, and the obvious complementing right-pointing ‘next’ link for newer (when viewing an older than latest page/article).

    In the book analogy we are indeed on the current last page of the book when viewing the latest.

  13. Jeremiah says:

    Another vote for earlier/older. Should remove any ambiguity about what the author means when they say previous and next.

  14. Matt K says:

    I prefer it the way the web comics tend to set it up (e.g. 8 Bit, OOTS) SO previous/left takes you back to the next article (i.e. the older one that was posted before this one). So I guess the way it’s set up now.

  15. Nathon says:

    “older” and “newer” are unambiguous.

  16. empty_other says:

    If i were to read your blog like i read webcomics (which would be appropriate, as i started reading your blog because of your webcomic), i would start at the first page.
    I would hate to have to constantly press “<- prev” to be able to read the next webcomic.

  17. midget0nstilts says:

    I’m gonna put myself in the minority and say that I’d prefer the left arrow to take me to newer entries, and the right arrow to older entries. My reasoning is this: we read left-to-right, top-to-bottom. The majority of blogs order entries from newest to oldest, so on the main page, the further down you go, the older the entry. Ergo, the older entries should also go on the right.

    But then again, the truth is I really don’t care. I almost always look at the preview from the front page before deciding to actually go to an article (i.e. I don’t read one, then click next or previous).

  18. Dev Null says:

    Older is better, says the old guy.

    But left for older, in my brain.

    1. Shamus says:

      Duh. At some point in the past I must have noticed the Next/Prev ambiguity and changed it. It already says “Later / earlier”.

      I don’t even remember making that decision. Must have been ages ago.

      Huh.

      I feel like a guy who decided to mow the lawn, got out the mower, oiled it, gassed it up, and rolled out into the yard to find it neatly trimmed.

  19. Ingvar says:

    Would it make more sense to label the links “Earlier” and “Later”? That ought to be less charged than “previous” and “next”, in that it is a distinct temporal reference instead of a mixed spatio-temporal reference.

    My preference would be for “earlier” to be on the left and “later” on the right, as that is the normal left/right scale on most (though possibly not all) time lines.

  20. Jax says:

    When I think of a blog I think of it as a book in progress that may never be finished. I could read from page one or the last completed page. Then If I start at the last page I can either read forwards or backwards.

    If I start enjoying a web comic, I’ll typically go back and read if from the first entry. At that point I like “Next” or “Newer” to be on the right side.

    I always have trouble understanding why on some sites I’m clicking “Next” on either side and not getting the “Next” entry but the previous one.

  21. SeekerOfThePath says:

    In my opinion, the answer to the question depends on what you want to express. If you want to navigate user to the next page with more blog posts, it should be “rightward next”. Else, if you want user to navigate to page with older posts, it should be “leftward previous”. Finally, to avoid any confusion, I would label arrows with full text, such as “Next page” or “Previous posts” as opposed to simple “Next” and “Previous”. I, personally, wouldn’t confuse users with left-next and right-previous buttons.

  22. Benjamin Orchard says:

    Strike out on your own! Use up and down!

    Up is older, down is newer. Why? Who cares?

    You can do it the other way, I don’t care. Use a circle! The inside is newest, outside is oldest! Group related topics! People will hate you forever!

    All that REALLY matters is UNAMBIGUITY!!! THAT I DO CARE ABOUT. A LOT. Screw that up and people will leave your blog in droves. Navigation can break every single convention you want it to, but if people can’t figure it out in 3 seconds, and can’t get to where they want to in 1-3 clicks, they won’t be looking at anything not on the main page of your site or directly linked from text. This is all.

  23. Vegedus says:

    Huuuuh. In webcomic tradition it’s leftward and “prev”. This seems logical to apply to blogs as well. Intuitively, though, right feels [i]better[/i] somehow, when I picture it. I can’t quite decide on prev or next.

    It’s definitely a better idea with older/newer, because prev and next is obviously ambiguous in this case, and thus, confusing.

  24. Foone says:

    You may want to check that your blogging software hasn’t been compromised, I have just started getting virus-detected errors when opening Twenty-Sided posts. They list the virus as “JS/Exploit-Packed.c.gen” but don’t give me a URL to which script it is.

  25. Factoid says:

    I like “Older/Newer” or variations on that theme as others have suggested.

    But if using arrows and “prev/next” I would be very confused if a left arrow said “next”. That just seems wrong to me and the thought criminals at Destructoid must be punished for their heinous infraction.

    I think the page numbering issue is kind of moot, because I don’t think most people approach reading a blog the same way they approach reading a book.

    As long as posts are clearly and visibly date stamped it should be reasonably clear to people how the ordering system works. The worst crime a blogger can commit in my opinion is not putting dates on their posts. Thankfully almost everyone does because all the major blogging systems do it automatically.

  26. someguy says:

    well, I can say that your currently used “earlier” and “later” got me confused a couple of times :) (on that occasion: yes, you may absolutely read this as “I’ve spend quite some time on your interesting and enjoyable blog”)

  27. Neil Polenske says:

    While it’s not the same as blogs – which I honestly do not peruse save here – here’s how I prefer my webcomic navigation:

    <<FIRST LAST>>

    I figure it would apply here, just swapping pictures with text. In this case:

    <<FIRST = Previous category. i.e. if I’m looking at a DnD, this will take me to your last Anime post.

    = Newer post.

    LAST>> = Next category.

  28. Rallion says:

    It can be a LOT less confusing if you just stop insisting that you start on page 1.

    I think of it like a book. When you start writing it, yes, that’s page 1. But then the next time, it’s no longer page 1, that’s set. It IS confusing for the contents of already-written pages to move around.

    You can also read it like a book, starting with the beginning, going in chronological order. The difference is just that when you go to the site, it (for the regular viewer’s convenience) starts you on the last page.

  29. Oh man…

    This discussion is as bad as when someone says that the meeting has been moved “up”, or has been moved “back”.

    I always think to myself, “What the heck does that mean?” Does “up” mean earlier in the day? Does “back” mean later in the day? Or vice versa? Now I’m going to miss this meeting completely because I’m so confused!

    <<Older—–Newer>>

    Leslee

  30. Neil Polenske says:

    Uh…I don’t know what the hell happened to my prev post, but I bet it has something to do with the tags that I don’t know anything about. Also, edit aint working, so I’ll…I dunno.

    Just ignore the previous post. It did not come out as I wrote it.

  31. Johnny Hazzard says:

    I honestly got lost at where previous and next where ambiguous. I have always equated previous to something that happened earlier. Timelines seem to set those events to the left and current events to the right.

    As a side note it’s interesting to see how other individuals minds gravitate towards the opposite set up. I would have never given it a secounds thought.

  32. Previous. Or older/newer, as others have mentioned.

  33. mneme says:

    My preference, is left=>prev, right=>next.

    That said, there’s a problem here — and it’s a problem with the “blog” format in general:

    Standard page order is reversed (latest on top). However, optimal reading order for a total read through is normal (earliest on top).

    You’re quite right that when you’re reading in reversed order (with latest entries on top), it makes much more sense to have an ‘Older –>’ link (eg, next=<older, as you’re reading in reversed order).

    Of course, if you want to make it easy for people to read in natural order, it would be very cool to offer a “normal order” option with older entries on top and ‘<–older newer–>’

  34. ccesarano says:

    It has gone back and forth so much that I can’t even decide. Sometimes when I click the third item in a stack of an inbox, I’ll see previous and think upwards; previous entry from the top. However, then I think it may mean previous in terms of time.

    It depends on how the designer planned it. Are previous/next in relation to the physical representation of the stack, where next descends down the stack and previous up, or does it refer to time?

    Gary had it right: the most clear representation at this point is simply “older” versus “newest”.

  35. thegrinner says:

    I prefer it styled like

    It just makes more sense to me like that.

  36. Lalaland says:

    Left and Right as indicators for the passage of time are culture specific. Given that I would wager that the majority of readers here are speaking a european language (English, Spanish, French, etc) and read left to right then left indicating a prior post and right for a subsequent post makes sense. In the middle east that probably wouldn’t work as most Arabic scripts work right to left, as do a lot of Asian languages and some of those work on the vertical plane so up and down also become expressions for the passage of time.

    As for the actual words to use why not ‘prior posts’ and ‘subsequent posts’, overly flowery perhaps but unambiguous

  37. onosson says:

    I like the suggestion of using up and down. I think of blogs, not as books, but as long scrolls of paper. As far as that goes, I would go with up=new down=old, but really it could go either way.

  38. Budke says:

    Why is it always Left/Right? It seems like you should have an arrow pointing DOWN at the bottom of a page saying “Older Posts” And and arrow at the top of archive pages saying “Previous Posts”. Of course, your previous post link should point to a marker at the bottom of the next page.

    1. Shamus says:

      Budke has spoken wisdom. Just eliminate the left / right confusion and present the blog as entirely vertical document.

  39. Tim Keating says:

    Yes I’m going to go with the majority of the crowd here, while offering reinforcement and a caveat:

    Reinforcement: look at the rewind and fast forward buttons on your remote. Which way do they point? OK, do that.

    Caveat: Unless your blog is in Hebrew. Or Arabic.

  40. elwood says:

    @Shamus (comment 13)

    if 1 is newest and 9 is oldest

    page one goes
    1
    2
    3
    4
    5
    and page two goes

    6
    7
    8
    9
    10 <- this would be the first post.

    and you read them in order. the older button just loads the 5 next oldest comments.

    It doesn’t matter which way the older button points. In my mind it should be left is older and top is newer.

  41. Rutskarn says:

    I guess left/prev makes more sense to me, but I actually have no idea which Chocolate Hammer uses. One sec…

    EDIT: Left/Older Entries.

  42. Josh says:

    I prefer Older (Previous) on the left and Newer (Next) on the right.

    Makes more sense as if you are reading a book.

  43. goldcup says:

    left & or previous should be, and usually is, the previous post. anyone reversing that is an irritation.

  44. SiliconScout says:

    I am with Elwood here.

    have it load the 5 previous comments. For a blog people are used to reading newest @ top and older down.

    Left pointing arrow should just grab the next oldest posts.

    Label that Previous and the right pointing entries call Next.

  45. Greg says:

    I think you need two different navigations setups:

    For the Archive pages, it runs in reverse order from newest to oldest, so clicking the right arrow will actually bring you to older posts and clicking the left arrow will bring you to newer posts. You should probably have another button that takes you back to the first (most recent posts) page for quick navigation.

    For the individual posts, it makes the most sense to have the left arrow take you to the older post and the right arrow take you to the newer post. You could then make <> buttons that take you to the first and last post, respectively.

    I get the feeling that people here all want the same thing, just some () are thinking of the individual post level and others () are thinking of the archive level.

  46. maehara says:

    Are we getting a vote? :)

    My internal logic says:
    ← Older / Previous
    Newer / Next →

  47. Greg says:

    EDIT: There is supposed to be text between the parenthesis.

    First set: left=older, right=newer

    Second set: left=newer, right=older

    Just clarifying.

  48. Jazmeister says:

    Older and Newer make more sense.

  49. SireCh says:

    given that there isn’t a convention that is used consistently across blogs, I think the only good option is Older/Newer, as some people already suggested.

  50. Greg says:

    To answer your question next seems more natural than prev, but I agree with most folks here that older and newer makes things clear.

  51. stvdwtt says:

    I prefer something to the effect of “Earlier Posts” and “Later Posters”. Also, arrows to the right should mean “closer to the present” and arrows to the left should be “less recent”.

  52. Dan says:

    Wait a minute. If left goes back in time, does that make it right in the past?

    I’m pretty sure you should alternate it – left goes back first, after which right goes back, until you skip ahead by going left, in which case the back in time arrow reverts back to left.

    Having solved that, I must return to drafting the new tax code.

  53. Zaghadka says:

    Penny Arcade uses a block of four buttons. I’d label them this way.

    |<–First | <–Prev | Next –> | Latest–> |

    Grayed out, as appropriate, is best. This makes the most sense to me.

  54. Tacoma says:

    Timeline.

    I assume that the blog posts are organized in the order they have been posted. When displayed they appear at the top of the page first for convenience of regular readers. But I understand that to read in chronological order I must go to the bottom of the page and work my way up. This involves reading the post title, reading downward, and then skipping across what I just read and the body of the next post to the next post’s title. Then reading down again to the end of that post and repeating.

    Since I understand that organization, I know that to click the “prev/earlier” or “next/later” buttons will take me to posts lower or higher on the page respectively. But I don’t think about it like that – I think of a timeline with posts along it. The beginning is on the left and the ending (current post) is on the right. Just like most timelines drawn by English-speakers.

    Based on that, imagine the “prev” and “next” buttons to hover directly over a horizontal timeline. When you click “next” you move to the right. When you click “prev” you move to the left. Thus it’s obvious your “prev” button should be on the left and your “next” should be on the right.

    With controls that include “first” and “latest”, these should be on the outside of the other two. Organized like so:

    FIRST PREV ARCHIVE NEXT LATEST

    In the sense that the center point of the control scheme is neutral and the farther from the center, the more dramatic the movement.

    The central button can be blank and nonfunctional. But I’d rather see it as a usable control that transcends movement along the timeline. “archive” works with that and is useful.

  55. Vladius says:

    Unless it’s in Hebrew, the right arrow should be next, and the left one should be previous.

    And then I guess if there’s a line next to the arrow, that modifies it to “First” and “Last.”

  56. Dnaloiram says:

    Wow, more than fifty posts for a previous/next on the bottom of a blog?

    Anyway, I think it just makes sense like this:

    <older postsnewer posts>

  57. CrushU says:

    When you have to objects and one was posted before the other, you don’t put them side by side and have Next of the second one pointing to the older.

    You’re a programmer, I’ll explain it like this: Objects[]
    You’re saying that Objects[1].Next() should point to Objects[0]?

    You said that if you have it as Newest First on a page, the first page would be 5 4 3 2 1, and the second page would be 10 9 8 7 6, attempting to use that to justify it… Here’s the problem with that: When someone first comes to a blog, they see the LAST page, the page with the newest. So they see 10 9 8 7 6. And then they click the button to take them to older entries, and now they see 5 4 3 2 1. No problems.

    To put it another way, assume that each individual post is its own page. If you put Right > Older, that means that ‘Right’ of post/page 10 is post/page 9, backwards from books.

    It’s assumed that if you start at the oldest posts, you’ll be reading backwards, that is, up the page.

  58. Yar Kramer says:

    Yeah, I’m with the “same way your browser works” kinda thing.

    Or webcomics, for that matter, which typically have links for First, Previous, another link like “Home” or “Archive” if “latest” isn’t the same, Next, Latest and in that order. That just seems to be the convention, I guess.

  59. Mark says:

    So you’re asking if the arrangement should be like this…
    9 | 6 | 3
    8 | 5 | 2
    7 | 4 | 1
    …or like this…
    3 | 6 | 9
    2 | 5 | 8
    1 | 4 | 7
    …where each number is a post and each column is a page of posts. Navigating between posts is just scrolling (vertically) within the page, and navigating within pages involves clicking links with arrows pointing left or right.

    How should you arrange your columns? Neither way.

    The problem is that we’re using two axes to try to represent a single dimension of time.

    If the blog presents posts arranged vertically in descending order, the link at the bottom should point down to indicate older posts. The link to newer posts should be at the top of the page, pointing up. This way, the arrangement of posts within each page is vertical, and the arrangement of pages is also vertical:
    9
    8
    7

    6
    5
    4

    3
    2
    1

    Add anchor links to quickly jump to the bottom and top of each page, and you’ve solved the problem for everyone.

  60. freykin says:

    For me, left being previous and right being next makes the most sense, due to the vast amount of webcomics I read. They all pretty much function that way, so I’m used to it now.

  61. BaCoN says:

    Just consider the net like a giant book. When you turn a page to go forward, you turn to the right. When you start at the beginning, you start at the far left.

    Unless you’re reading manga, I guess?

  62. Galenor says:

    I prefer < – being older.

    The reason behind this is probably due to the navigation buttons on a web browser. When you want to go back a page you’ve previously viewed – in the past – you click the arrow pointing left. If you want to then advance back to a page you viewed after this one – in the browser’s ‘future’ – you click the right one.

    Also, going right is a sign of progression in a lot of games. I can’t name you a single sidescroller that starts you off on the rightmost side and has you walk leftward.

  63. T says:

    I like “Older” and “Newer”, but the actual label doesn’t bother me that much.

    What bothers me is when there’s no easy way to get to the oldest post and then read them them in the order they were posted.

  64. Kimari says:

    I prefer “old” for older entries, and “new” for newer entries.

  65. Kdansky says:

    Budge wins the Philosophy Award of Questionable Use.

  66. Hotsauce says:

    I’d say left is earlier. But you can skip the whole issue the way LiveJournal does with “earlier” and “later”

  67. Daniel says:

    I think you are making this way too easy. Today’s youth have been overly coddled, and this is just one more example.

    Without any arrows, you should just have two links that both say “MORE” and make us mental weaklings figure out what they do.

  68. Julian says:

    Arrow to the left, previous posts. Arrow to the right, newer posts. Going right is synonimous with advancing. Think of Mario, Sonic, etc. Think of Lord of the Rings, where the characters move to the right when they’re going towards a goal and to the left when they’re getting further from it (or coming back)

  69. Dave says:

    Right is next (newer), left is previous (older).

    But definitely, up for newer, down for older is a gem of wisdom…

    A site I enjoy, Real Pizza Delivery Stories, does next above previous, but next takes you to older stories which on the main list are below the newer entries, so it’s totally counterintuitive.

  70. I think that most people would think that the arrows at the bottom of a blog work the same way the arrows on their browser do.

    If I see something pointing to the left, I expect it to take me back in time, regardless of what it actually says. Similarly I assume that anything pointing to the right will take me forward in time.

    But yeah, labeling these things as “older” and “newer” seems to alleviate the confusion.

    Alternatively you can do what my Tumblr theme currently does – at the bottom of the blog I have a button that says “more”. You press it, and it makes an AJAX call and loads the next page of posts underneat the current one.

  71. UTAlan says:

    Personally, I prefer “Next Page” (right) and “Previous Page” (left).

  72. Cuthalion says:

    An arrow pointing RIGHT that says NEXT and takes you to a more RECENT entry.

    An arrow pointing LEFT that says PREVIOUS and takes you to an OLDER entry.

    Thus is my preference.

    Edit: The same arrows saying OLDER and NEWER, as has been suggested, would work too.

  73. Kreek says:

    simple solution
    dont put an arrow, its not nessessary
    just a simple prev and next are good enough

  74. kmc says:

    Things like webcomics seem like they should be right = next = newer, while if I see “next” on a blog, I guess I’ve gotten used to the idea that next = deeper into the archives. But maybe I’ve just changed the way my brain is seeing it, as though I’m walking down a hallway where ancient tomes lie in dusty alcoves at its farthest reaches, while newer texts are added to new shelves close to the entrance–I’m still going forward even though it’s farther back in time.
    Or maybe I’m overthinking it. Older/Newer makes it easy even if you have arrows pointing up and down or you replace the arrows with dancing unicorns.

  75. SolkaTruesilver says:

    How about you give the option on the right-side, regarding the order they appear in a single page:

    “Newer on top, older on bottom”
    “Older on top, newer on bottom”

    and left = older, right = newer

  76. Mark says:

    And that’s what I get for not reading others’ posts very carefully. In short, I agree with Budke.

  77. ngthagg says:

    I’m not really concerned about the arrows (although up and down is a great idea. Left and right feels intuitive to me since it fits with the way we read books, but if enough blogs convert to up/down, today’s children will become used to the idea that everything is vertical on a computer.)

    But older and newer are a necessity, because previous and next have different meanings depending on perspective: is it the author, looking for a previously written post, or is the reader, reading from the newest post and going back.

    And why don’t blogs have oldest/newest buttons as well? If I’m reading posts on a specific topic (instead of browsing the blog) it’s nice to skip back to the start. For example, on a typical blog if you wanted to read through Shamus’ terrain project, you would choose “Terrain Project” on the sidebar and then click prev (or is it next?) a bunch of times until you get to the first post.

  78. Jaedar says:

    People generally read from left to right.
    Therefore left is previous, and right is next.

  79. rflrob says:

    It really depends. If it’s a link through the archives, then the blog convention is that “next”/Right arrow means older. Especially if you have something like a listing of pages. For example, if you’re on page 3 of the archives, then the bar could look something like this:

    (<– prev) 1 2 3 4 5 ( next –>)
    I’d expect the next button to take me to page 4 of the archives, which contains older entries.

    On the other hand, if it’s a series of articles, like say the Pixel City series, then the left = older, right = newer makes sense. This is what you do for everything in a given category, and that makes sense to me too.

    Are these behaviors different? Yes, but I think it’s the context that matters. If Newer = top within a page, then older = right makes sense. If you’re looking at a single article, though, then for the text you see, newer = bottom, so you want older = left.

    As an aside, that would be an interesting (somewhat Gà¶del-Escher-Bach-ian) project: write a blog post that makes sense from top to bottom, but is really meant to be read from bottom to top (maybe by paragraph).

  80. Rod says:

    Trying to use angle brackets (less-than/greater-than symbols) in my comment somehow deletes most of the text!!

    For links to older content, put an arrow pointing left on the left side of the page. Label it “previous”.
    For newer content, an arrow pointing right, on the right side – called “next”.

    Unless your target audience is Asian.

  81. Gildan Bladeborn says:

    As long as the arrows specify what they are pointing to, it doesn’t really matter which direction they point in, but there’s no reason to change the way you do it now. Most forums I’ve visited work the same way – they tend to have newer threads on the top and if a sub-forum goes to more than one page, all the older ones are listed on the right under the page numbers. The same holds true for blogs and (some) news sites.

    Sure, left generally means “back” in a web browser, but we already know that Blogs, Forums, News Sites, etc tend to display in reverse chronological order, so forwards IS going back. Reversing that just feels weird.

  82. NBSRDan says:

    With the reverse chronology of blogs, I find newer=left/previous, older=right/next to be the most intuitive.

    You should set up a digital poll.

  83. Jason says:

    I’m with the majority as well, left=older.

    On an unrelated note, I want to bitch about people that don’t date their blog entries (which you DO, thank you Shamus.)

    It’s extremely annoying to be googling for something, link through to a blog and then have no idea how outdated what they’re saying is. There’s been a couple of times I’ve read some authoritative article (sans date of course) only to find out it was posted in 2001. Which in terms of programming, is the prehistoric ages.

  84. vede says:

    Older is to the left, newer is to the right.

    I just can’t believe no one has said this yet.

  85. Brandon says:

    As I’m sure has already been mentioned (87 comments is too much to go through before work), western cultures tend to see left to right as the proper progression of material. Older entries would be like older chapters in a book, or older words on the same line on a page, thus they would be to the “left” of newer entries.

  86. Jeff says:

    I agree with Brandon, for what it’s worth.

    New/Next = Go Right.

  87. Rod says:

    I’m with the book-metaphor crowd.

    Left for older entries. Older entries labeled Previous if necessary.

    Maybe with a nice graphic of a page corner slightly lifted…

  88. Octal says:

    “Previous”/”older”/”earlier” = left arrow = chronologically earlier. Any other setup just feels weird for the reason Roy gave.

    1. Shamus says:

      Thank you for suggesting split. It is awesome.

  89. T says:

    “Especially if you have something like a listing of pages. For example, if you're on page 3 of the archives, then the bar could look something like this:

    ()
    I'd expect the next button to take me to page 4 of the archives, which contains older entries.”

    ———-

    Ah, but is the newest page #1, or is the oldest page #1?

  90. Sam says:

    Having not read all 90+ comments before mine, I’ll just say that the two separate blogs I keep both have the “Previous” link on the left-hand side of the screen and the “Next” link on the right-hand side. One has an arrow pointing left next to the “Previous” link, the other doesn’t. I’d never given it any thought before, but it’s kind of how I expect any blog or webpage with older entries to look. Having the “Previous” link on the left and “Next” on the right, that is.

  91. Khizan says:

    Just like my browser. Left goes back to older content, right goes forward to newer content.

  92. Blake says:

    << Oldest Newest >>

    Thats the order that makes the most sense for my brain.

    If I want to read it as a book I want to read it chronologically (going back to the earliest post then reading forwards).

    Interestingly though, if I was to lay out the vertical choices horizontally I’d want
    ^^ Newest ^ Newer — Older Ë… Oldest Ë…Ë… which is backwards to my standard choice.
    Seems good for a blog though

  93. Miral says:

    As others have said before, I think the context is the most important indicator of my expectations.

    If I’m looking at an archive page (multiple posts on one page), they’re arranged with newest at the top and oldest at the bottom. In my mind, that means that an arrow pointing right should lead to Next / Earlier entries.

    If I’m looking at an individual post, it’s arranged with newest (paragraph) at the bottom. It makes the most sense then for a right arrow to lead to Next / Later entries.

    Note that the right arrow is always Next, but it’s not always the same direction in the timeline :)

  94. Sean Conner says:

    I actually gave this much thought when writing my own blog software, and spent a huge amount of time working out the navigational features.

    The main page has entries in reverse chronological order (newest on top), as does every other blog in existence. The archives, however, are presented in chronological order, oldest on top. For navigation, I have (as appropriate) in this order, “Next” (next entry in chronological order, next day, next month, next year, depending on the level you are viewing the archive, and yes, you can view an entire year’s worth of entries at once), “Previous” (previous in chronological order), “First” (first in chronological order) and “Last” (last in chronological order, which means the most current).

    I did it in that particular order since, in my mind, the most common operation done in going through the archive is going to the next entry (and in a text based browser it would be the first link to hit, excluding any links in the text of the entry still visible) (at least in theory, in practice I see I blew it, heh).

    My advice, get rid of the arrows, and make the text unambiguous.

  95. jwaddell says:

    Thank you for suggesting split. It is awesome.

    Shamus, I think this comment was supposed to be in the “Need a Job” post.

  96. Shawn says:

    Previous should go to older entries, Next should go to newer ones.

  97. LintMan says:

    I like the older/newer labeling much better than prev/next, but which is left or right doesn’t matter to me.

    But, whatever you do, please please please don’t put in one of those mouseover-popup “Share this” links directly under the older/newer, “(more…)”, or comment links! Please! It’s so trendy now, but it’s annoying as hell! I go to click to get the next page of some article/blog/etc, but I overshoot my mouse by 3 pixels and instead some stupid popup comes up with links for Digg, etc and covers up the link I’m trying to click on until I move the mouse away and wait for the popup to close. Grrr.

  98. paul says:

    Holy cow there’s a lot of replies. I’ll say the same thing everyone else is saying:

    I do this:

    << Older Entries     Newer Entries >>

    Virtually every browser in the world does in browsing history, so I would keep this.

    Although… Part of me says twitter’s web page has the right idea for the future. Just put the new ones, and hit the more button to get more. I liked it so much I put it on my site instead of the <> thingy.

    If you look at what people do and how they use websites, they very rarely need to go back and forth at all, just back. People who are repeat viewers of your site are only interested in new content.

    I have abbreviated comments on my main news page so that I can keep the paradigm of “current” and “older”. Clicking on the title or the elipsis brings you to the real article. I am a big fan of this layout for blogs.

    Feel free to hijack my javascript if you want to use it!

  99. rats says:

    by now i am sure you have enough results to have made up your mind. however…

    < previous

    makes most sense to me. I think of a blog like a diary. and we write left to right.

    My two pence.

  100. Zaxares says:

    Weird. My post disappeared entirely!

    But anyway, I tend to think of Left as Previous, and Right as Next.

  101. Greg says:

    I’m happy with either right or left going to earlier content, as long as it’s labelled unambiguously. Perhaps this has to do with me reading both english-language novels and scanlated manga.

  102. Ritch says:

    All arrows should be labeled. That way there won’t have to be a tooltip when you do a mouseover.

    Regarding labels, “NEXT” “LATEST” or “NEWER” should always refer to something MORE RECENT. If you want to refer to something that indicates something posted at an earlier time (aka. an old post), it should be labeled “PREV” “BACK” or “OLDER”

  103. Andrew says:

    As long as they’re labelled, it shouldn’t really matter which side of the page each is on. Considering the format of a blog is top to bottom, the only way I can see to making it intuitive would be to put the link to newer at the top, and later at the bottom, but most people would hate having to scroll through the entire page if they wanted to go the other way. If you’re actually only looking for the most recognizable format, since browsers and web-comics both use left as previous and right as next, that’d be the way to go.

  104. Davy says:

    Ha i read all 107 comments without leaving a quote

  105. Davy says:

    crap i guess my <– previous quote counts…

  106. HeroOfHyla says:

    “Next” should always be on the right and “previous” should always be on the left.

    If the buttons are “next” and “previous” I assume “next” means older. This is because I generally start at the newest post and read from that to the older posts.

    But if they’re “next” and “previous entry” I assume next means new.

    If it’s “older” and “newer” instead of “next” and “previous” i prefer “older” to be on the right, because I generally read starting at the newest post.

  107. Gerard says:

    I prefer Prev(Older) on the left and Next(Newer) on the right.

    “Older”/”Newer” is much clearer than “Prev”/”Next”, and thus enhances usability regardless of preference.

    I also don’t think a website in any way needs to conform to a book metaphor. It should conform to the text direction of the language in which it’s written, but anything beyond that may or may not be desirable.

  108. Brickman says:

    I agree wit the “previous=older=left” crowd, though it’d be even better if instead of “Previous/Next” entries you label them “Older/Newer” entries.

  109. Chris Arndt says:

    Look I don’t use this stuff on my blog and there is a very good reason.

    However I can understand the rationale… in other sites. Take Egotastic…. not safe for husbands…. I’m going to stop going there. I like bikini babes. Bad for Christians.

    Nonetheless, they use “Next page” arrow point right…. why? Because the front page is Page 0 logically (although on Egotastic it is page 1 when it comes to topical archives) and PREVIOUS DATA ENTRIES are PRESENTED on what is DENOTED as SUBSEQUENT pages.

    Postman #110 is correct.

  110. You mention the example of a book… A book is in chronological order (the events at the start happened before the events at the end). The same is with blog archives, except more people open the book on a random page (arriving via links from other sites) so we let them flick through the pages.

    Another thing that always bugged me… on your keyboard or calculator number pad 1 is at the BOTTOM left. Pick up a phone or go to the ATM and it’s the TOP left. We switch between these devices without even noticing the difference.

    I’ve always “just known” what’s meant from the context and haven’t had to worry about it… until I was in Hotmail a while ago and while reading an email saw ‘Next / Prev’ up the top and didn’t know if it would take me forward or backward in time.

  111. Kacky Snorgle says:

    What Greg said back at #47.

    On a page with multiple posts listed in reverse-chronological order, I’m presumably reading down the page (from newest to oldest). So when I reach the bottom of the page and want to “turn the page”, the right-arrow should take me to the next page of even older posts. If I happen to be reading *up* the page (oldest to newest) instead, then when I get to the top, I want to flip *back* a page, so the left-arrow should take me to newer posts.

    But if I want to read a series of old posts chronologically (DMoTR, say), then I’ll go to the first post of the series, read through it, and then “turn the page” to the next post–so the right-arrow should take me to a newer post.

    It sounds a little odd at first to have opposite conventions for multi-post pages and single-post pages (I myself was quite surprised just now when I thought about how I expected things to work!), but it’s very intuitive when you use it without overanalyzing the situation. Not that anyone in this conversation is likely to do anything without overanalysis…. ;)

  112. wererogue says:

    The thing with “left for older” means that page one is:

    5
    4
    3
    2
    1

    And page two is

    9
    8
    7
    6

    Now, if you read it like a book, you'll read them in this order 5 4 3 2 1 9 8 7 6.

    If right is older, then page one is

    9
    8
    7
    6

    And page two is:

    5
    4
    3
    2
    1

    And if you read them like a book you get: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    But if you read it like a book, surely you’d start from the first (chronologically earliest) page…

  113. Mayhem says:

    Go go japanese style
    Top to bottom, right to left.

    You read books backwards, starting from the right cover and finishing on the left.

  114. Don J says:

    Unrelated to the post, but relevant to HTML links anyway:

    I wish more people would use the link URLs when responding to specific comments on blogs like this one. The URL for a given comment is easily available, and using it makes things so much easier to follow, especially if you are referring to a comment much higher up the page.

    When there are a lot of comments (like here) I often read the first few, and then start skimming when I reach the point where most comments are repeats of what has already been said. When skimming I look for posts by Shamus, since he’ll usually reply to the really good stuff. In this thread, I read this comment, which sounded pretty cool — so I wanted to go read Budke’s comment. I should have done this using the “find” utility, but in many cases that won’t work, for one reason or another.

    I’m not complaining at Shamus here — he’s already doing far more with this site than anyone (funny how that works). I’d love it if there was a quick easy way to add these links to comments (other than being an HTML wizard who can type a hyperlink without thinking about it). Of course, I have to wonder if anyone would use the feature even if it was convenient.

    The best part is, with the number of comments on this entry, it is likely that Shamus is the only person who will ever read this — and Shamus, I think I’d prefer that you keep producing great content, rather than spending far too much time making my life slightly more convenient. (Not that I would expect you to pay attention to my preferences if they were different!)

    EDIT: It occurs to me that every time I post something here that is longer than two paragraphs, I come away feeling like I’ve wasted my time, and probably Shamus’s time as well. Perhaps there’s a lesson here somewhere…

    EDIT AGAIN: It also occurs to me that I am unlikely to ever look at this post again, so even if somebody does reply, I’ll never see it.

    EDIT YET AGAIN: I was going to humbly request that Shamus add the ability to subscribe to comments on a particular post, but I went to look first — lo and behold, it is already there. Why have I never noticed that before?

    EDIT AN ASTONISHING FOURTH TIME: I probably had seen it before — it’s for comments on ALL entries, which really doesn’t help me out here. Still not worth changing unless it’s REALLY easy to do so, though.

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