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Navigation and Menus

Navigation and Menus. Will Oakley Information Architecture and Design I October 5, 2006. What are we going to cover?. The reasons for having strong navigation systems Embedded Navigation System The Browser: Your Navigation Pal! Supplemental Navigation Systems Navigation Dos and Don’ts.

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Navigation and Menus

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  1. Navigation and Menus Will Oakley Information Architecture and Design I October 5, 2006

  2. What are we going to cover? • The reasons for having strong navigation systems • Embedded Navigation System • The Browser: Your Navigation Pal! • Supplemental Navigation Systems • Navigation Dos and Don’ts

  3. What is Navigation? • Navigation: n 1. The act or process of navigating. 2. The art or science of plotting, ascertaining, or directing the course of a ship, aircraft, spacecraft, etc. • Random House Webster’s College Dictionary

  4. What is Navigation? • “Knowing your [rear end] from a hole in the ground.” • My Mom (quote edited for content)

  5. What is Navigation? • “Knowing your [rear end] from a hole in the ground.” • My Mom (quote edited for content) • “…and being able to move the former to the latter without getting lost.”

  6. What’s the fuss? • Navigation on the Web must contend with problems that don’t exist in the physical world: • No sense of scale • No sense of direction • No sense of location • Krug 57

  7. Lost in Hyperspace • Krug speculates that without physical clues, Web users are constantly having to reorientate themselves. • “Navigation isn’t just a feature of a Web site; it is the Web site, in the same way that the building, the shelves, and the cash registers are Sears. Without it, there’s no there there.” • Krug 59

  8. How Navigation Serves the User • Tells us where we are • Points us toward what we’re looking for • Gives the sense of being grounded • It informs us of what is available • Provides clues on how to use the site • Gives users confidence in site creators • Krug 59-60

  9. Will’s Obligatory Wife Story • Kate is a freelance educational writer and editor. • Wanted to learn more about a company before applying • So she visited www.allenresources.com

  10. Kate’s user experience • Frustration • Lack of confidence in site creators, even to the point that initially questioned the website and company’s legitimacy.

  11. What went wrong? • Allen Resources didn’t observe many Web navigation conventions.

  12. Navigation Conventions • The three embedded navigation systems • Global • Local • Contextual • Rosenfeld and Morville 107

  13. Global Navigation Systems • Intended to be on every page of a site, with possible exception of the homepage. (Rosenfeld & Morville 113) • Krug lists five things that global navigation systems should have • Site ID • A home button • Sections • Search • Utilities (i.e. help, about us, etc.) (62)

  14. from www.amazon.com from www.1up.com

  15. Local Navigation • Enables browsing in a particular section of a site • Often times global and local systems are integrated into one system, with the local navigation is expanded when that particular section is entered. From www.texassports.com

  16. Contextual Navigation • Links that exist for a particular page that are outside of the local and global systems. • Examples: • See also • Related Topics • Overuse=clutter

  17. From www.1up.com

  18. The Browser • The Browser Buttons are a web constant for users.

  19. King of the Browser Buttons! • Krug says 30-40% of all web clicks are on the back button. (58) • Tauscher and Greenberg’s study shows that there is a 39% chance that the next site a person views will be among the last six sites they’ve viewed. (401) • The morale of the this: don’t disable the back button.

  20. Supplemental Navigation • Four main types according to Rosenfeld and Morville (121) • Sitemaps • Site Indexes • Guides • Search • I’d like to add one more from Krug (75) • Breadcrumbs

  21. Site index Site map From www.lowes.com From www.imf.org search breadcrumbs

  22. Guide from www.myspace.com

  23. Advanced Navigation • Personalization • Attempts to anticipate user’s need • Customization • Allows user control over some elements of page presentation • Social Navigation • Attempts to anticipate user’s need by comparing it to the actions of others • Rosenfeld and Morville 127-129

  24. Web Dos and Don’ts • Don’t disable the back button • Don’t disable bookmarking • Don’t fool around with the color of visited/unvisited links • Rosenfeld and Morville 109

  25. Web Dos and Don’ts • Put your site ID in the upper left corner and make sure it looks like an ID • Make the site ID also a home button • Tabs are great but they don’t scale well • Krug (64-81)

  26. Frames

  27. =

  28. Resources • Krug, S. (2000). Don’t make me think! A common sense approach to Web usability. Indianapolis: New Riders. • Nielsen, J. & Tahir, M. (2002). Homepage usability: 50 websites deconstructed. Indianapolis: New Riders. • Rosenfeld, L. & Morville, P. (2002). Information architecture for the World Wide Web. 2nd ed. Sebastopol: O’Reilly. • Tauscher, L. M., & Greenberg, S. (1997). Revisitation patterns in World Wide Web navigation. ACM SIGCHI '97, Atlanta, Georgia, March 22-27, 1997. Atlanta, GA: ACM. 399-406

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