User-specific pages should show username in the browser title

[azurelunatic]

Title:
User-specific pages should show username in the browser title

Area:
icons, memories making things make sense

Summary:
The browser title for user-specific pages like icons and memories should also include the username, especially when it's not your own journal.

Description:
Currently, the /icons page (for example, http://azurelunatic.dreamwidth.org/icons ) merely has "Icons" as the page title. Something like "Icons - username" might be more useful, especially if someone has multiple tabs open with multiple people's icon pages. Memories (/tools/memories?user=example) has the same problem.

I prefer little-endian (most-specific first, out to least-specific) page titling, for example "Icons - azurelunatic - Dreamwidth" although places like the profile page have the username first in the title and then the specific page title, so it should probably be standardized across the site at least as far as pages in the main site style go.

Poll #7989 User-specific pages should show username in the browser title

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 74

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
57 (77.0%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
7 (9.5%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
2 (2.7%)

(I have no opinion)
8 (10.8%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[axiom_of_stripe]

I prefer little-endian (most-specific first, out to least-specific) page titling, for example "Icons - azurelunatic - Dreamwidth" although places like the profile page have the username first in the title and then the specific page title, so it should probably be standardized across the site at least as far as pages in the main site style go.

Most of the pages have the username first, which I prefer: I'm more likely to group tabs by the journal than by the function, so "[username] | [page]" is my with changes vote.

[azurelunatic]

I'm totally not picky about which way it is, so long as it's standard across the site.

[axiom_of_stripe]

I can count four different standards right away, I'm afraid:
* dw_suggestions | Recent Entries (the standard for styled journal pages except entries)
* dw_suggestions - Community Profile (the standard for the profile page)
* Icons (the standard for site-schemed pages)
* dw_suggestions: User-specific pages should show username in the browser title (the standard for entries)

I accept having entry pages different on the grounds that the title there is actually a different sort of thing from the title of the other pages, since it's user-generated and based on content rather than site-generated and based on function.

However, I definitely agree with you that having the other types of page titles set to a uniform standard would be nice! If they do get flipped, I'd like for them all to get flipped.

(Can styled pages set their own titles in S2?)

[matgb]

Can styled pages set their own titles in S2?)

Yes, I wrote a partial howto awhileback but it needs updating.

(still working on getting Tags to display properly, currently my layout page gets the title "dreamwidth: layout entries in | Mat Bowles", think I can improve it a bit but may need to remove the pipe, which I like on other pages)

[feathertail]

Hot dang. >.>;

+1 that they need to be standardized and have the user name added.

[existence]

+ 1 for consistency in default names.

[jeshyr]

+1 for reasonable consistency

[the_shoshanna]

Ditto.

[matgb]

FWIW, most usability and search pros recommend as per Azz's suggestion, and it's how I redid my Title text in my layout-ideally you should be able to look at a tab and see, from as few words as possible, exactly which page it is, quite important if you've multiple pages from the same site/user open at once.

[axiom_of_stripe]

And there's the answer to my question if styles can overwrite the title -- thanks! *grin*

The question of whether the username or the page function is more specific depends on behavior, though: if you are looking at one person's profile, icons, and recent entries, then you're grouping by journal and the function is more specific, but if you're looking at three people's icons, then you're grouping by function and the username is more specific. When I have multiple DW tabs open, I'm almost always grouping by function to look at multiple people's journals (and I have the habit of hopping by direct URL to other pages of the same function for different journals, so to get from my icon page to yours, for example, I would just replace the "cmshaw" with "matgb", which encourages me in thinking of the icon page as the group which contains all of the icons of specific journals). However, if I'm an oddity and most people think of icons being inside journalspace -- which, now that I stop and think about it, is what the new DW URLs are saying, isn't it -- then the titles really should be flipped for everything so that journals are the group and the functions are the specifics. I suppose I'd get used to it quickly enough....

[matgb]

if I'm an oddity and most people think of icons being inside journalspace

It is inside journalspace-specifically, it can now be styled in S2, although I've yet to see anyone that's done it or figure it out (it was my project for the summer, but, well, less said about my projects this summer the better).

So yeah, flip everything so it's Page | Journal | Site where appropriate would be the best solution (I don't spend enough time on chrome pages to notice lack of decent title,s that's remiss of me).

[azurelunatic]

And thinking about it, title item order might be one of the things that could be manipulated by S2 (not sure if it's possible now, but it seems like it should become so if it's not) so anyone with strong feelings in the matter (particularly in their own journal) might be able to shuffle it to suit.

[matgb]

Aye, I really need to get my head around writing S2 options so people can pick, say, what share buttons they want or what order they want their Title tags-I hand coded miss_s_b's name into her title tag because it was easier...

[ratcreature]

FWIW, I prefer username first too.

[jumpuphigh]

+1

[voldsom]

For me, I'd also prefer username first, but so long as the site is consistent, I'd be very happy to see this in any form.

[ciaan]

Ditto.

[susanreads]

I'm little-endian in general cases because you can often identify the site from the favicon, but in this case, I think I'd rather have username first. If it says "susanreads | Readi..." I know it's my reading page or a filter; journal titles and post titles can be long and push the username off the tab.