Forum Moderators: phranque
Are there any noticable benefits either way (excluding overall file size) for each?
Does one method have a particular benefits regrading usability, PR and overall look of a page, or is it all the same (and down to the design abilities of the web designer)?
Any thoughts?
jackofalltrades
Nicely formatted text links, possibly with enough formatting to make them look like graphical buttons, on the other hand, are a-OK.
Of course, this is coming from someone whose graphics-heavy pages might have left.gif and right.gif from the Apache distribution and the w3c validation logo. (Ok, I have some dedicated slide-show pages that might have a big photo PNG on them, too.)
Text.
If you're going for fast and easy, stick with text. The number of tricks you can play with CSS can make them almost as slick as a good graphic.
...but any graphic buttons should have text incorporated into the design, IMO, and the page should have a full array of navigation text links at the bottom of each page. I can't count the number of times I've scrolled straight to the bottom of a page to find some nice, simple text links when they went a bit overboard with their fancy top-of-page navigation!
Even outside of the SEO issues, I prefer text links whenever possible. They simply look cleaner, load faster and make life eaiser. I do like to throw the occasional CSS rollover in there though...just to make 'em pretty. :)
I just hate the vanilla-homogeneous look most web sites are headed towards. With tasteful graphics your site can really look different.
Text is well, text.
