Okay, can you tell me which part(s) you disagree in Nielsen's following arguments?
Quote:
The oldest usability guideline for any type of navigational design is to help users understand where they've been, where they are, and where they can go (past, present, and future). The three are somewhat interrelated: a good grasp of past navigation helps you understand your current location, since it's the culmination of your journey. Knowing your past and present locations in turn makes it easier to decide where to go next.
Quote:
Observe carefully, though, and you'll notice that users frequently move in circles. They'll visit the same page multiple times -- not because they want to, but because they don't realize that they've already been there. Users will give up when they've tried most links in a list, even though there's one link that they haven't tried; if the links don't change colors, users don't realize that there's only one unvisited link remaining.
I believe, it would be a lot easier to browse bytes.com, if visited threads in lists have a different color for instance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Laakso
Good practice is a matter of opinion. Some of us don't buy Nielsen's flaky statistics on this matter, or the resultant user confusion the method he suggests yields.
The method Acoder suggests is common practice nowadays.
As for myself, I use neither Nielsen's or the "common practice" method as there is no need to set a:visited in the first place, or at all:
