date modified on alt pages about gcweb

[thomasgohard]

I think that the date modified should only appear on content pages, and not on interstitial pages.

[shawnthompson]

we've been using the index-alt-e.html pages as the content page model and the secondary pages as the "themes" pages and those have date modified on them...

[thomasgohard]

Just so I make sure I understand:
index -> home page
second -> theme landing page
index-alt -> content pages

Is that correct?

[shawnthompson]

That's what I've been doing on Canada.ca

[thomasgohard]

OK. Then 'index' and 'second' pages shouldn't have a date modified. And 'index-alt' pages should have a date modified.

The date modified is to tell readers how "fresh" the content is. The home page and the theme landing pages don't have any content, so they shouldn't have a date modified displayed.

[shawnthompson]

Agreed. Thanks

[pjackson28]

@thomasgohard Why wouldn't you have a date modified on the index and second pages as well? Just because they are primarily links does not mean they are without content. Without that date people will not know when something has been updated or changed. They will not know the currency of the list of links unless the page is being automatically generated (which in that case date modified wouldn't make sense). So unless the list of links is automatically generated so always up-to-the-minute, there is still a purpose for date modified on those pages.

Also isn't date modified or a version identifier required on all pages except for splash and server message pages.

[thomasgohard]

Right, the Standard on Web usability does require a date modified or a version on all pages. Forgot about that one.

Although I don't still think that it makes sense on interstitial pages. People think of those pages as navigation; these pages just get them to the content. If navigation needs a date modified, than you'd need one for the menu bar as well. But no one expects a date modified on a menu bar.

Also, even though that will not be the case at launch time, interstitial pages should be automatically generated.

[pjackson28]

@thomasgohard I don't think the "interstitial page" term is appropriate here. As far as I can tell there are no interstitial pages on the site. An interstitial page is a page that is injected before or after and expected/requested content page such as confirmation/verification pages (such as an age verification page or a site exit notice). The definition does not include pages that helps a user to find and navigate to a content page.

Even if a page's primary purpose is navigation (although likely will have other content as well), it still contains page-specific content where a page-specific currency indicator would be relevant to visitors. It is beneficial to visitors to know for instance whether the home page and secondary pages have been updated in the past year.

As for comparing to the menu bar, that is very different. The menu bar is not page specific and is the same across all pages on the site so would be out of scope of a page-specific currency indicator. This is very different from the content are of the home page and secondary pages (or even navigation pages) which has content that is specific to those pages so would be within scope of a page-specific currency indicator.

[masterbee]

@pjackson28 , @thomasgohard so is it fair to say that we add a date-modifed to all pages? The homepage was not approved with a date modified so I am leaning more towards a no, but if the standards dictate then we add one in and alert all stakeholders.

[thomasgohard]

@masterbee Yes. Date modified on all pages for now as that's part of the standard.

[masterbee]

Addressed in PR