Benefits:
- The main navigation buttons are in the same location on each page. After becoming familiar with the site, you know exactly how to locate them quickly, and what actions they perform.
- The colors, text styles, heading locations and so on are consistent... you would know immediately if you left this site.
- Identifying images and supplementary text and other navigation or end-of-page features are consistently placed. When you encounter them you know you have reached the end of main content of the page.
Annoyances:
- The site might seem monotonous after browsing through many pages.
- To maintain a sense of where they are in a site, a visitor will have to rely on less obvious cues or clues on a page to keep from being confused .
Another example for this technique is this set of curriculum slides. Granted, these are designed to emulate a slide presentation, but both the beneficial (and annoying) elements of consistent design are certainly demonstrated here. We feel the benefits outweigh the annoyances.
To Checkpoints for Guideline 14.Next slide: Appendix A