Linking items from lists that also contain slide down information

Question

I have a page for a doctor's practice. In the summary page for the practice there is a list of subsections. Some of these sub sections are very large, others can be a paragraph or 2 with a short unordered list.

The large subsections warrant their own separate page, the smallers one's not so much. I created a little plugin which enables me to use the list of subsections in 2 ways. When clicking on the title of a larger section, you'll be sent through to it's own page. For the smaller sections, a slide down box will open with the information.

When clicking on these titles, should it be consistent so that the user always knows that clicking on a title means either going to a new page OR getting slide down content? Or is it ok to mix both?

The titles don't look like hyperlinks, they've been styled as thick horizontal bars.

Answer 1

It would be better to make it consistent for all the titles. You are basically making it a battle for the user to 'guess' what clicking a particular title will do; will it open a new page OR will it open a box?

• You can create a long page with all the titles are sections and have a navigation at the top where clicking on a title will scroll you to its position (have a back to top link in each section)

• You can have a module/window slide open like an accordion when you click a title, so all the titles have their description open in place and you get everything on a single page.

• You can visually treat the smaller sections separately. Create a side-bar with content of all the small pages and use the center space to link all the independent pages or so.