Reverse in Lists Your Making

Web space is crucial, and user tests continue to show that many users don’t scroll down to see content that falls below the screen bottom. So if you’ve got a date-oriented list, maybe it’s time to think in reverse — put the newest date at the top and the oldest at the bottom.

This might be hard for those of us who grew up in the print world, where things usually go top-to-bottom. But remember, this isn’t the print world. (And if you need a precedent, look at any blog — its entries are newest-on-top.)

By inverting the list, your page immediately appears current — maybe even forward-looking, and users will tend to trust your entire Web site more. (see One Bad Apple…) But remember that consistency matters across the entire site, so if you invert one date-oriented list, invert them all. (See the archives links on this blog page for a bad example — shame on you, Blogger.com!)