Don’t make me think Chap 6: Navigation
Visit a department store you’re not overly familiar with. Set a task to find something that you’re not sure of. Soldering iron at Walmart, for instance. Parchment paper at Lukens. Take note of navigation signage.
site nav
Do we go through the same process on a web site? Does navigation of a web site invoke the same processes? Or different?This seems to have less to do with writing, but it’s the space where writing sits.
- terminology of labels:
- Nav controls genre and titles and leads and subs
- Larger consideration of what to include where, or if something is included.
- Nav labels Influences downwards, influences if something will be written or included. Eg nothing about Bemidji on the BSU site. Add top level nav to Community, and you need content.
persistent nav
- site
- Section
- Utilities
- Search
alternatives
- by audience: for parents, students, ...
- marketing terms
- corporate organization
- ...
Overall question is
- What ontology is being followed?
deep nav
Top levels influence lower levelsdesigners usually don’t even have enough time to figure out the first two levels.
It’s not so much time as expertise - Designers need work in ways of organizing. They need background in ontology.
fulllabels / naming
Krug mentions placement but not terminology- ontology of labels and how they help users navigate.Consider the different places we’ll find tomatoes and how that complicates navigation
tomatoes
For each, what is the head term?- Fresh - produce
- Canned
- Sun dried
- Organic
Where do the terms come from? They are consistent across stores.
Where do the terms of your sites come from? Are they consistent? Are they understandable? How do they affect navigation?
look at what BSU has to organize
Look at the list of officesConsider how mixed this is - and how it might be categorized -
Cedar Apts w/ Dorms?
what’s the cover term? Student Residences? Dorms?
other problems?
What categories fit?
Whom?
To do what?
Ontology - the basic categories of being and their relations.[
WayfindingExercise
Consider personal classification systems: terms, who can follow?
Consider library's classification system.
Revisit navigation and classification when we turn to spacial hypertext.
next: chap 7
Page layout
