Hi James,
I'll mention this for the record, not that it's an extraordinarily
innovative example. I did this site a good few years ago and
incorporated a glossary in two ways. Firstly, a set of terms that were
put into a javascript array and turned into links if they were found in
the text of a record. I thought we'd included all sorts of photographic
terms but it turns out we just did a couple of key references for some
reason. Here's an example:
http://www.photolondon.org.uk/pages/details.asp?pid=155 (Hunniset,
Boase etc)
The terms are (I think) held in an XML file and transformed/inserted
into the array on every record page.
A similar method was used on the advanced search form but presented
differently.
http://www.photolondon.org.uk/pages/searchForm.asp
Here it's used for help text, and again this is ultimately from an XML
file and inserted on the fly, but as static HTML. This is like the
tooltip method you talk about, but they also link through to longer text
on a separate page (built, you'll have guessed, from the XML help file)
Oh, I've just spotted the glossary in the help pages
(http://www.photolondon.org.uk/pages/help.asp). No idea why we didn't
use these in the same way as the references by turning them into links
in the records whenever they showed up, but there you go.
Cheers, Jeremy
--- On Wed, 12/1/11, James Morley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: James Morley <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Implementing a technical glossary feature
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Wednesday, 12 January, 2011, 14:19
> Hi
>
> Has anyone on the list ever implemented a glossary tool
> that gives web visitors explanations of technical terms
> used? And/or does anyone have any examples of sites
> which use one that they like (or dislike for that matter!).
>
> I'd be particularly interested in feedback about:
> - interactive 'hover' type behaviour vs a standard link to
> a descriptive page
> - accessibility/usability
> - whether implementation was automatic (i.e. terms/links
> are added automatically, and without manual control,
> wherever a glossary word appears in the editorial) or
> whether it was a manual task for contributors (and hence
> retrospective for existing content)
> - whether the user should be able to turn the feature
> on/off (in the case of tool-tip type behaviour)
> - any other pros/cons, dos/don'ts!
>
> Many thanks, James
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> James Morley
> [log in to unmask]
> Website Manager
> Tel. +44 (0)20 8332 5759
> Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
> www.kew.org
>
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