Best Website Footer Design?
I’ve noticed something going on for a while now. More and more websites are starting to use the footer space to place comments, related posts, categories, tags, and more.
I had a few questions for our readers:
- What do you think about content being placed in the footer?
- What are your favorite footer designs? (Please include links)
If there is enough feedback, we’ll take our favorite footer design and mention it in next week’s Friday Focus.
"));
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Content? Seems kind of weird.. Maybe a cleaver comment and some ‘useful’ links to dedicated readers (for bonus points).
Speaking of links, your subscribe points to FeedBurner, but rel=”alternate” is /feed. Maybe that should be fixed..
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Tony,
Here’s some examples:
Larissa Meek.
Fadtastic.
9rules Blog.
The Propaganda Party
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My favorite footer is over at http://www.openswitch.org . First of all it has a nice little snail, but just adds cosmetic benefit to it. I love the compact sitemap, contact, feed ability. Plus he has his site creative commons license down there too.
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I was just about ready to say Powazek.com was one of the first to implement this style, but it looks like he’s done a major overhaul on the site and its not really a blog anymore. That’s a shame because he had a great post on this subject that would be worth reading, but now not so much. Sorry, this was almost pointless.
I like Larissa Meek. Somehow she got an extra helping of good genetics
: Talented, beautiful and funny.
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Thanks for the suggestions all. As far as footers go, I’m more-or-less looking for a footer that doesn’t have “just” the standard information such as copyright, date last udpated, etc.
Here are a few more examples of footers being put to use:
Boagworld
Circle Six Blog
456 Berea Street
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Thanks for the mention!
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Thanks for mentioning fad.
I personally like some of the more popular Wordpress themes that make use of the footer by offering latest posts, archives and recent comments all nicely tucked away at the bottom of the page.
I believe that this can be quite effective. For example:
If the reader has got to the bottom of the page, then it is highly likely that they read the content and therefore it is also likely that they found it worthwhile. If they found this worthwhile, then offering similar content in the footer seems like a good idea to me.
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http://www.skype.com/download/
Skype’s footer is always an inspiration for its usefulness.
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I think the footer of the websites is moving in direction to be something like sitemap. Many sites use it to display internal links, specific features of the content. My personal favorites are:
http://www.last.fm
http://www.flickr.com
http://www.digg.com
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I like mine, but I need to do something about the last played music plugin. If I’ve been on the road/not listened in a while that space is conspicuously blank.
I’m using a modified version of the hoofiev3 theme for wordpress.
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I like Last.fm’s, as well as Fadtastic’s (not just because they link us..ok maybe :P).
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I think the content-footer idea is kind of cool, although you could say that it’s just a “different” content block at the bottom of the page. It’s a nice way to add content without cluttering the above-the-fold area or cramming the sidebar with too much information. Since scrolling seems to no longer be so taboo, why not?
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Yeah, I’m not sure they can really be referred to as footers per se once they start containing a significant amount of content. When I see an area in the same column as the main content, I expect it to have some direct relevance to that content rather than the entire site.
So with that in mind, in a ‘footer’ I wouldn’t mind seeing links to related articles, links to earlier pages, etc, but I wouldn’t be inclined to put my blogroll on there or anything else not directly related to what’s in the column above. It just seems a bit illogical to me and I expect a fair few users think the same when they see it — I’ve certainly seen more than a few “Wtf?” comments in response to those universe-containing footers sported by some sites.
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The more I see “content” in the footer per se, the more I seem to like the idea of it. I don’t think the top-level or side-level navigation should be replaced with footer navigation, however.
Thanks for the feedback all. If you want more of these types of questions in the sidenotes, please let me know.
If I had to choose from all of the above (including my examples), I would probably choose The Propaganda Party’s footer. Even though the footer is technically a sidebar, I think it serves its purpose of balancing out top-level navigation and footer design.
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What do you think of my personal footer? It’s a spur of the moment thing, really.
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As a webdesigner I tried to remember to place myself as a user and I really cant imagine a user visiting and focusing that much on the footer unless they are a user looking for something that they expect to find but is not the purpose of the site.
ie Affiliate information.
So in regards to the question. I think its a poor idea to put content in when you have a whole page to do that and if a user has to go to the very bottom for the very content they want doesnt that mean the content needs to be replaced?!
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I don’t think so Zypher. Sometimes your page is too long and the user might be in the middle of the page or near to the bottom, and you need to give him a fast access to more content inside instead of taking him again to the top. Also if you are using drop down menus that hide most of your sections or small side navigation! of course you need another navigation at the bottom of your pages to highligt more of your sections or use it for your newsletter mailing list module for those who are interested without bothering other non-interested readers
I can go for more but I think you need to think again ma friend
cheers
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My favourite footer has to be Merlin Mann’s at 43 Folders. Informative, attractive, and appropriate. It’s often my first stop when I visit the site.
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I like the footer style of problogger.net
very simple but professional.
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I really like reabo-designs footer. Simple without all the pictures
http://www.reabo.co.uk
also The Propaganda Party posted above very nice
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I like the footer at http://www.argee.org - has a nice sketchly touch to it.
And yes, I just made that word up.