List+&+Table+Use+Summary

Summary of List and Table Use in Fitness Sports Re-Design
I used two different tables in my re-design of the Fitness Sports web site:
 * The tabs with the links to the different content areas near the top of the page.
 * The two-column table in the middle of the page with links to the different content areas, and an explanation of what can be found at each of those links.

In my initial iteration for the Fitness Sports site re-design, I used a bulleted list in the middle of the page. However, after thinking about things a bit more, I decided to replace the list with a table. Per Redish's discussion in Chapter 9, I could have gone either way and made it work, but I felt more comfortable with the table.

Redish's first guideline for lists states they should be used to make information easy to grab. But the other guidelines focus on using lists for instructions (even complex ones), and turning paragraphs into steps for a procedure that is to be accomplished. Since I wasn't doing anything related to a procedure on the Fitness Sports site, I decided to change the list to a table for the final re-design. Redish's guidelines for use of tables made more sense to me given the information that I was including in the table, since I am using it to guide the site visitor to the next level of information on the site. Also, two of Redish's guidelines for tables seem more appropriate in this case: Use tables for a series of "if, then" sentences; and, think about tables as answers to questions. In my case, both of these guidelines apply. Regarding "if, then" sentences, my table could be used to form statements like, "If I follow this link, then this is the type of information I'll find." Also, if a user asks, "What information will I find if I click on a link in the left column of the table?," the right column answers those questions. I did try to apply one of Redish's list guidelines to my table entries by using a parallel sentence structure in the statements in the right column.