I lost in a vote, but it's grown on me. That word "older" just feels better going left than right, but originally I had them reversed in the plain-text version of the site. It also said next/previous which is HAHAHilariously bad.
Timelines all leave the past gasping in the dust to the left so newer items *should* be to the right of their older brethren. (But even as I type that I question the statement's validity. Oh the quandry!)
Estimated time until the Quora question police purge? 5 hours
I agree with Jeff in that typical timelines go from old (left) to new (right), but in the instance of a blog, you have to page BACK to see everything that's "new," so in that instance, it seems "newer" should be on the left.
New pages of my real-life, tangible book are on the right of my current page.Pages that I have already read (or skipped over) are to the left of my current page.
We put "Older" on the right, but did away with "Newer" altogether in favor of a link back to page 1. If they want to go back to the previous pages, people can use their back button.
We'll never have a clear decision on this, but I declare mlkshk the winner because of URLs like this: http://mlkshk.com/friends/before/22JS. This is far more useful to me than /friends/page/2, even if it's slightly more human-readable. So round 1 goes to mlkshk.
Mlkshk is right. Timelines move from left to right. (Different cultures may vary, but I'm writing this in English.) Oldest is always on the left. Newest is ALWAYS on the right. Think of any historical timeline you've ever seen. Think of Minard!! The reason we don't get confused about how to read those is because there's a standard. The standard applies in this situation as well.
Nobody, so far, has even come close to presenting a reason why "newer" would be on the left and "older" on the right.
Honestly? It's such a profound misstep that it looks downright amateurish. Like putting the newest blog comments at the top. Or labeling your links "click here".
Does time move from right to left or left to right?
Posted by: jeff reine | May 06, 2011 at 01:33 PM
Sounds like a good question for the Quora admins to delete.
Posted by: Michael Sippey | May 06, 2011 at 01:38 PM
I lost in a vote, but it's grown on me. That word "older" just feels better going left than right, but originally I had them reversed in the plain-text version of the site. It also said next/previous which is HAHAHilariously bad.
Posted by: torrez | May 06, 2011 at 01:41 PM
Timelines all leave the past gasping in the dust to the left so newer items *should* be to the right of their older brethren. (But even as I type that I question the statement's validity. Oh the quandry!)
Estimated time until the Quora question police purge? 5 hours
Posted by: jeff reine | May 06, 2011 at 02:27 PM
I agree with Jeff in that typical timelines go from old (left) to new (right), but in the instance of a blog, you have to page BACK to see everything that's "new," so in that instance, it seems "newer" should be on the left.
Math is hard.
Posted by: daisy barringer | May 06, 2011 at 02:42 PM
New pages of my real-life, tangible book are on the right of my current page.Pages that I have already read (or skipped over) are to the left of my current page.
Posted by: Hubs | May 06, 2011 at 03:28 PM
We put "Older" on the right, but did away with "Newer" altogether in favor of a link back to page 1. If they want to go back to the previous pages, people can use their back button.
http://mlkshk.com/p/212C
Posted by: Santheo | May 07, 2011 at 12:53 PM
We'll never have a clear decision on this, but I declare mlkshk the winner because of URLs like this: http://mlkshk.com/friends/before/22JS. This is far more useful to me than /friends/page/2, even if it's slightly more human-readable. So round 1 goes to mlkshk.
Posted by: Matt Jacobs | May 09, 2011 at 09:08 AM
use the power of the words. this is the web, it is hypertext, you don't need a direction. just make it older and newer thats it.
Posted by: Usuck | May 11, 2011 at 12:37 AM
Mlkshk is right. Timelines move from left to right. (Different cultures may vary, but I'm writing this in English.) Oldest is always on the left. Newest is ALWAYS on the right. Think of any historical timeline you've ever seen. Think of Minard!! The reason we don't get confused about how to read those is because there's a standard. The standard applies in this situation as well.
Posted by: Mike_FTW | May 12, 2011 at 03:57 PM
Nobody, so far, has even come close to presenting a reason why "newer" would be on the left and "older" on the right.
Honestly? It's such a profound misstep that it looks downright amateurish. Like putting the newest blog comments at the top. Or labeling your links "click here".
Posted by: Chrisfahey | May 12, 2011 at 07:58 PM