Towards website coherency

[eshellman]

Take a look at this screenshot:

(from https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/43725)

The top menu has a "Main Categories" link. This metadata for the book has "Category Text". Either the metadata label or the top menu needs to change.

Above that is "Subject Norway -- Fiction"

Click the link, and you get books with that subject. There is no way to get this list from the top menu. None. If you look in "Reading Lists" there is one promising entry: Norway Click that and the result is... one book. That is disappointing in many ways.

If you type in "norway fiction" in the advanced search, you get reasonable results and an opportunity to refine the search. type that into the top menu search box, and you get a bizarre set of book results. But you also get a very useful link to "subject" results: "Subjects 18 subject headings match your search." The icon for subject links is a test tube and some beakers which is somewhat bizarre.

Above them are the Language and LoC Class metadata items. These have the misfortune to lead to static pages whose best attribute is that they are very large static files that load quickly. Good for bots, bad for humans.

Language Norwegian
LoC Class PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures

These are the pages that the new top menu design is trying to hide. They can be reached through the advanced search pages.

I would like to instead replace these links with the corresponding dynamic links, which can be resorted:
Norwegian
PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures

I would like to see a place for a link to a page of these language links on the top menu.

If we stick with "category" for the top level sections, is it ok to rename "category" on the bib pages to "datatype" to match the advanced search form?

[JohannesSeikowsky]

"If we stick with "category" for the top level sections, is it ok to rename "category" on the bib pages to "datatype" to match the advanced search form?"
yes, that makes sense to me. I would even argue that that particular row on the bib page may not be necessary. It should really already be obvious to the user from the top part of that page whether he/she is looking at an ebook, or an audio book or whatnot. In a good design that row should be redundant.

'"subject" results: "Subjects 18 subject headings match your search."'
Hmm I wasn't even quite aware of these "Subjects" as separate structures. I am aware of "Main Categories", "Reading Lists" and "LoCCs". What are these subjects even? where do they come from? how are they made?
I think one general challenge is that there is a multitude of ways of categorizing the 75k+ books and making them searchable. Obviously you want good fine-grained search. Put we also don't want to drown the user in too many, hard to understand options. Confusion is the enemy.

"I would like to instead replace these links with the corresponding dynamic links, which can be resorted:
Norwegian
PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures"
I dont understand what that means precisely.

"The icon for subject links is a test tube and some beakers which is somewhat bizarre."
yes that icon is indeed very odd. and not in a good way ...

"These are the pages that the new top menu design is trying to hide. They can be reached through the advanced search pages."
I don't understand why you're so opposed to the "Advanced Search" form as the gateway towards more fine grained search likes Languages search and LoCC search. It makes clear sense and is just not a problem. What however is a real problem is the terrible design of the "browse pages", which currently are in effect the search results pages of Languages searches and LoCC searches. In addition there's a third type of search results page that you get when you do a "Author", "Title" or "Subject" Search from the "Advanced Search" form. That one is also bad.
Improving or ideally completely unifying those with the usual search results page (that of a "Quick Search") should be the priority.

[eshellman]

click on the links I give - they are exactly what you want in #158

[eshellman]

The subject data is what I describe iin #146 A real-life cataloger is assigning subjects to the books! Essentially all of the books! not some undocumented algorithm.

I agree that we should unify the results page. The current approach was chosen 15 years ago because static pages were faster

[JohannesSeikowsky]

"I would like to instead replace these links with the corresponding dynamic links, which can be resorted:
Norwegian
PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures"

I get it now. I was a little surprised/confused that these pages even exist. Linking to those pages rather than to the browse pages is such an obviously good idea that I'm mildly confused that it's not already the case. In short, I'm all for it!! It seems that the h1 on these pages can use some adjusting, but to be honest even without that it's a big step up from the status quo!

Can we also make it so that the "Language" and "LoCC" searches from the "Advanced Search" form also go to these pages and not the browse pages? that would be so good!

[eshellman]

exactly! I'll do languages in time for the homepage rollout. That's why I really want a page linked from the top menu for languages. I think LoCC will be the same.

[JohannesSeikowsky]

I'm 100% for replacing those browse page. But I'm VERY skeptical of changing the flow of the header.
The header as it is is clear and easy to understand. Language and LoCC search are clearly visible on the "Advanced Search" form, which is the default view of the "Search Options" form. This just isn't a problem.

[eshellman]

you could easily add the language links to the "catalogs" tab of the search options. I'll do it if you don't care to.

[eshellman]

Also, I'll be adding back a subtle link to an explainer for the now-secret quick-search syntax to the "Full Text Search" tab.

[JohannesSeikowsky]

you could easily add the language links to the "catalogs" tab of the search options. I'll do it if you don't care to.

that makes a bit more sense. in my view you could even take "Categories" out of that tab. They are already in the menu and pretty much only there because having only Catalogs there would have looked lame.

Also, I'll be adding back a subtle link to an explainer for the now-secret quick-search syntax to the "Full Text Search" tab.

make sure it looks good. and post screenshots

[eshellman]

thanks