ia/ - Navigation

The Page Paradigm

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 06:09:03 -0800

Mark Hurst has written an interesting discussion about web pages and how people navigate. In it, he reminds us of something he wrote in 1999,

On any given Web page, users will either… click something that appears to take them closer to the fulfillment of their goal, or click the Back button on their Web browser.

The interesting part of his message here, I think, is that the IA/designers’ focus on aspects of the UI such as navigation consistency is less important than the supporting of users in getting them to their intended goal. He says provocative things such as “users don’t care where they are in the website”. If you can get your head past that idea, 3 bullets summarize what this should mean for you in practice:

Identify users’ goals on each page.
De-emphasize or remove any page elements (or areas of a site) that don’t help to accomplish the goal.
Emphasize (or insert) those links, forms, or other elements that either take users closer to their goal, or finally accomplish it.

I’ve posted additonal personal opinions on this topic elsewhere on my weblog. Peterme discusses Mark’s ideas as well, pointing out that he shouldn’t dismiss the value of wayfinding cues in order to make the point that empasis should be placed on user needs and behaviors supporting those needs. Christina doesn’t see the harm in Mark’s oversimplification and suggests that informational cues such as breadcrumbs put the burden of mental strain on the user. It’s nice that she also suggests alternatives identified in her Widgetopia to helping users identify alternate paths related to their current task, addressing a point that I think is important — “Where can I go” is perhaps more important than “Where am I?”. Manu Sharma adds that both Peter and Mark are probably both right in this debate, but the difference in perspectives is explained by their different experiences.

Tracking user navigation methods by logging where users click on web pages

Fri, 20 Feb 2004 04:42:14 -0800

I wrote about some research we're doing in my organization to observe user interaction with navigation by tracking where users click on the page (body, local navigation, breadcrumbs, global navigation). Our observations aren't dissimilar to what Michael Bernard observes in usability testing -- links to content are most often searched for/clicked in the body of pages. Navigating our site (a digital library) consists mainly of browsing through a directory (a-z lists are available as are a poly-hierarchical directory listing), so what we were mainly interested in was how people made use of the links in the local navigation. I'd be interested in seeing if other people have done this and what they were looking for. I find, as an in-house site developer, that being responsible for a site for a long term (as opposed to just launching one and going on to a new project) gives one good opportunity to observe and assess the site for usability. Your can assess patterns of use over long periods of time. You can make contact with users and keep the lines of feedback open with them over time. Clearly there is something unique about being involved in the evolution of a singular site, which I am only beginning to appreciate.

My article on Navigation for CNET Builder.com

Mon, 23 Jun 2003 13:02:14 -0700

I recently wrote an article for CNET's Builder.com on recommendations for web site navigation. I'm targeting software developers like myself, who may not be as familiar with the principles of site design and architecture as usability experts or web designers.

Determine the best elements for Web site navigation

Anacubis: Visualization tool for navigating a finite info. space

Wed, 18 Jun 2003 12:15:20 -0700

At the SLA conference this year I got to demo Anacubis. I don't often see anything too interesting in the exhibition halls of library & info. sci. conferences, but this tool caught my eye. Based on the investigative software used by police in England and developed by i2 Group, Anacubis is a visualization front-end for data sets. The demos that showed included a front-end for Dun & Bradstreet company research, Lexis Nexis Legal databases, and intellectual property databases. In the D&B example, once you are viewing a company's information you can browse customer, competitor and subsidiary companies, as well as view officers visually. I've seen some application of similar visualization tools -- mostly it seems social network and map-based stock market visualizations have been around -- but this seems to be the first major commerical entry in the area of commercial information provision. I can see major advantage in the visualization of patent information, for example. This kind of information can be invaluable to companies looking to protect their patents and visualization tools can certainly help exploit our visual senses, which are more efficient/quicker when it comes to picking out patterns of information.

You can view a demonstration of their tool here.

Wayfinding - it's not just for humans anymore

Wed, 30 Apr 2003 15:10:27 -0700

An article in New Scientist reports that new research shows mice "make signposts out of leaves and twigs so that they do not get lost in fields".

"The wood mice might need to use signposts because the fields where they live are very bland - one patch of ploughed field looks much like another (..) And while some other mice use scent markers, wood mice are wholly visual". Much like humans.

User Context and Navigation in Articles

Tue, 11 Mar 2003 08:21:16 -0800

Joshua Kaufman collects some examples of contextual navigation using paging.

Customer Experience Whitepapers

Fri, 28 Feb 2003 10:23:01 -0800

Change Sciences has an archive of best practices whitepapers they've produced. Free registration required. Topics include writing for the web, navigation and orientation, search, checkout, user registration, and two interesting 'design paradoxes' articles. Most interesting to me is the recent task design article, and the two older, but still valuable ROI & Investing in User Experience papers.

Rashmi on recommender systems

Fri, 31 Jan 2003 03:38:03 -0800

Andrew pointed me to Rashmi's excellent discussion of findability and recommender systems on sigia-l.

It sure would be nice if the best of sigia-l was culled periodically. Scott Berkun does this from time to time. Maybe the signal to noise has gotten better on the list?

Up my street

Tue, 14 Jan 2003 06:29:20 -0800

The Guardian has a good review of the UK site Upmystreet.com, which allows people to seek information/services within a neighborhood by entering a postal code. The site has gone a step further by connecting people in within that locale as well. The ability to mix information seeking and interpersonal interaction seems like an interesting idea. When you consider that mobile devices will can be used to access services like this, new possibilities as well as new concerns are inevitable. Apparently there are some issues of privacy and safety, such as concern over the safety of children using the service. Nevertheless, a cool new way of making connections via locale.

3 navigation articles on Digital Web

Wed, 18 Dec 2002 11:36:21 -0800

The Psychology of Navigation by Jesse James Garrett
Persuasive Navigation by Jeff Lash
Navigation Complex by Peter-Paul Koch

Navigate on the right? The jury is still out.

Fri, 22 Nov 2002 15:50:25 -0800

Lucian pointed to the short Syntagm article by William Hudson on right-side navigation. Hudson, responding to Bob Bailey's HFI newsletter article on the topic believes that we need more data before we can know that moving navigation to the right will be a real improvement.

Way finding/losing in a digital library

Thu, 21 Nov 2002 07:42:00 -0800

I am in a discussion with a programmer about ways to offer navigation using a poly-hierarchical arrangement of nodes.

Election UI

Fri, 08 Nov 2002 05:02:34 -0800

webgraphics is discussing the touchscreen interface used in the Georgia elections this week. The UI is simulated on the Georgia site for your clicking pleasure (or pain).

Important Works for Web Navigation

Tue, 29 Oct 2002 05:21:16 -0800

Chad and Tanya pointed to Important Works for Web Navigation, David Danielson's annotated bibliography of essential, foundational literature for the study of web navigation. Danielson has published some other HCI work related to web navigation behavior and design completed during his Masters program at Stanford.

3d music ZUI

Mon, 14 Oct 2002 11:27:32 -0700

Braunarts' 3d music (requires Shockwave plugin) is an interteractive performance that blends music and a zoomable interface to create a 3 dimensional environment in which people explore the musical compositions. Interesting, but somehow, I feel uncomfortable in 3d or ZUI web environments like this. It's funny, because I used to play video games that rendered space in 2d and 3d and felt comfortable enough in those spaces, knowing that there was a goal to arrive at -- destroying the Death Star or getting around that pylon to shoot a tank down -- but exploring 3d spaces with ZUI's on the web just seems so slow and boring to me.