VC 237 :: Week 05 1 of 2 29 October 2008
— Online Lecture —
week::five
Web Navigation
Introduction
User-Centered Design
o Focus on the end-user experience.
o Thoroughly understand the needs of the potential users of your site.
Interface & navigation examples in real life
o MAX lines in Portland
Red, Blue and Yellow MAX lines
o Interstate Highway Signage
Green: General information
Blue: Rest areas/points of interest
Brown: Federal land or National Parks/Monuments
o Book navigation (yes, a real book, paper cuts and all)
Linear format with page numbers, TOC, index, etc…
o CD players and other electronic equipment
User experience == customer service on the web
o In e-commerce, it's the primary interaction between you (a company)
and your customers.
o It's your chance to make a good impression.
Principles of Successful Navigation
Navigation should be easily learned
o Make your categories common, intuitive and obvious.
o Provide easy links to primary site areas.
o Make good use of metaphors
Good: Shopping carts, PhotoDisc’s Lightbox
Bad: Channels as groups of categories; Southwest Airlines ticket counter
from 1999 (web.archive.org/web/*/www.southwest.com)
o Example: www.apple.com
Navigation should be consistent
o Don’t make your users learn a different navigation system on each page.
o If it’s consistent, navigation becomes transparent to the user.
o Example: www.oregonfoodbank.org; www.idexsolutions.com
Navigation should provide feedback
o Types: Rollovers, bold/plain changes, color changes, shape changes.
o Example: www.vlct.org, www.samhealth.org
Navigation should appear in context
o The wording of links should be able to stand on its own.
The word back can have a variety of meanings since users can come to a
page from many different places.
Wording like go to home page, or new search on a secondary page are
better choices.
