i6

Consistent sidebars of related content at a glance

Site Genre: Pattern Group i

magnify imageFigureI6.1 Beliefnet, a multifaith community Web site, uses sidebars to highlight special content. This example shows news and Today’s Top Picks sidebars.

Background

In CROSS-SELLING AND UP-SELLING (G2), we discuss how it can be useful to showcase accessories and more expensive versions of the current product, to entice customers to spend more money. In UNIFIED BROWSING HIERARCHY (K1), we discuss reasons why community, content, and commerce should be combined instead of being separated into distinct categories. In HEADLINES AND BLURBS (D3), we look at ways of promoting content found on other parts of your Web site. This pattern discusses how to use a sidebar to feature these kinds of related BROWSABLE CONTENT (B2) on a Web page.

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PROBLEM

Finding related content on a page can be frustrating.

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SOLUTION

magnify image FigureI6.3 Consistent sidebars of related content appear in the same place on every page so that customers know where to find them.

Make the location of sidebars consistent by using a grid layout and page templates. Also determine a maximum length for sidebars so that the page layout will be balanced.

Other Patterns to Consider

Consistent sidebars of related content are often used for HEADLINES AND BLURBS (D3), CROSS-SELLING AND UP-SELLING (G2), UNIFIED BROWSING HIERARCHY (K1), and EXTERNAL LINKS (K8). EMBEDDED LINKS (K7) are sometimes used instead of sidebars. Sidebars are often implemented as CONTENT MODULES (D2) to make it easier to automatically serve up related content. Sidebars are sometimes used to feature PERSONALIZED CONTENT (D4). A PAGE TEMPLATE (D1) can be used to make it easy to include sidebars on new pages. PRINTABLE PAGES (D8) are often stripped of sidebars to make them easier to print.

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