I think the UCSD Online Learning expects you to have problems with logging in... hence "Forgot your password?" is the first thing they present to the user. Well, sure enough, I had forgotten my password (as I'm prone to do when I first create a new account or return to an account that's been inactive for years), so I had to click on the "Forgot your password?" link.

Which brought me to this monstrosity: 

Seriously? They need to give me instructions on how to change my password because they've set it up so it's basically unfathomable at first glace? The red arrows and big red slash circle should be the first sign to a designer that there is a fundamental flaw in the user interface and the designer should go back and re-evaluate.

Next and Previous Blog Links

This is from the bottom of the blog for my favorite web comic: http://www.schlockmercenary.com/. And this is the way it should be done, with up and down arrows.

This is from the oh-so-familiar blog software, Blogger.com... which I use very often. It's not a bad interface, but why is the one with the arrows better than the one without?

 

It is because of how we read, which is from top to bottom and left to right. If we want to continue to read, we could scan downwards, especially in a website. Now, in many cases, clicking on older/newer will open a new page with a block of posts, so technically there is no "up" or "down" since, after all, you're starting again at the top, no matter what. But imagine the continuous flow. It always leads older text to newer text in a top to bottom manner. The arrows offer an intuitive affordance. 

That all said, the newer versus older paradigm isn't bad; at least the wording tells you what you're going to be looking at. But the side (left or right) that the link is on gives no particular affordance, at least not an intuitive one. We read from left to right... so "newer" -- that is, first to be read -- text would come first and "older" would come later. I'm not very comfortable with that l argument. The back button on your browser points left and takes you back to what you previously visited, so it might as well as say "older" on the left as opposed to the right. And adding left/right arrows (which I've seen on some sites) doesn't add much value either. However, up and down arrows work great. If I want to continue reading the blog, I am naturally inclined to draw my eyes down the page, eventually seeing the down pointing arrow, encouraging me to explore further, even if I don't read the label of "Previous." It's just a better affordance.