WHAT CAN WE LEARN ABOUT NAVIGATION?
Web
Site Usability: A Designer’s Guide,
by Jared M. Spool et al. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, 1999.
Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly and Associates, 1998.
Web Navigation: Designing the User Experience, by Jennifer Fleming. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly and Associates, 1998.
B Y N A N C Y A
L L I S O N
Boston Chapter
The term navigation appears frequently in discussions of online design. Having moved into online documentation after years of writing print documents, I am always interested in the conceptual possibilities of online design. So, I decided to read up on navigation.
I have been thinking about online navigation for weeks now, and I have decided it is everything and nothing – well, almost nothing.
However, most of navigation elements are also identified in other terms:
- A Table of Contents is typically considered organization, or structure.
- Text links are content – at least, part of it.
- Indexes are pure content, slightly rearranged. They consist entirely of concepts and data found in the text.
- Icons and graphics that are used as links may also consist of content. For example, you may click a bitmap image of a piece of hardware to go text describing that hardware.
If most elements of navigation are synonymous with structure and content, what’s left that’s purely navigational? Not much: browse buttons, "To Top" buttons in long topics with mid-topic jumps, and icons like the home icon. These items have labels that are independent of content.
The authors of the three books reviewed here all use broad interpretations of navigation to examine many aspects of effective – and sometimes ineffective – online design.
Web Site Usability presents the results of web studies by User Interface Engineering (UIE) of North Andover, Massachusetts. The authors state that "We brought in users who were familiar with a web browser, sat them down in front of a site, and watched them try to answer four types of questions . . . We wanted to see how they searched and what factors of the site helped or hindered them" (page 6). The results of UIE’s study are especially useful for writers of online documentation and online help, because the test subjects looked for specific information; they did not browse the web for entertainment.
This book’s great strength is its detailed analysis of many common navigation elements. For example, the authors have this to say about the effectiveness of navigation bars: "Sites with navigation buttons or links at the top and bottom of pages did slightly better than sites with navigation buttons down the side of the page" (page 26-27). The authors review the effectiveness of frames, tables of contents, navigation bars, hierarchical maps, "You are Here" devices, and site maps. Links and search functions are analyzed in similar detail. If you are looking for real-life information about how people actually use Web sites, this book is a great starting point.
Web Site Usability also provides useful insights for technical writers who are asked to make an online technical document conform to the design of their company’s Web site. If you suspect that your company’s Web site design is not suitable for the online help you are developing, some of UIE’s findings can support your theory. Design elements that may work well to draw in casual browsers may frustrate people who are seeking technical information. UIE’s studies show that animation, for example, distracts users who are looking for specific information.
Bookmaking comment: This book has no index. How this can be, in this day and age, I have no idea. This essential element of print navigation should not have been omitted!
Information Architecture For the World Wide Web, by Rosenfeld and Morville.
If you work exclusively on small, standalone online documents, you probably don’t need this book. But if you work on large-scale systems and deal with large amounts of data from many sources, this book is for you. It will provide you with a conceptual foundation that will enable you to confidently analyze large amounts of data and create an online information architecture to handle it.
Rosenfeld and Morville are the principals of Argus Associates, a consulting firm with extensive experience in designing large-scale Web sites. Using concepts from library science, the authors explain how to analyze information and create online architecture that can accommodate large amounts of data.
The book begins with an introduction to information architecture. In a section called "Who Should Be the Information Architect?" the authors list disciplines that can provide candidates: graphic design, information and library science, journalism, etc., etc. Rather dishearteningly, the authors never mention technical writers! In fact, technical writers are very well qualified to design large-scale information architectures, having done this very thing for years, for large doc sets that include user guides, reference manuals, tutorials, quick start-up guides, reference cards, and demos.
Chapters 3 through 6 review design elements that help users find what they need. The authors provide a thorough introduction to organizational strategies, navigation techniques, labeling strategies, and search capabilities.
For example, the material about organization strategies includes both organization schemes and organization structures. Organization schemes group information according to shared characteristics. Types of organization schemes include exact (chronological, geographical) and ambiguous (topical, task-oriented, audience-specific, metaphor-driven). Organization structures define the relationships between different parts of a site’s content; such structures include hierarchies, databases, and hypertext.
The authors discuss navigation systems in similar detail. They examine hierarchical, global, local, and "ad-hoc" navigation systems. They also review integrated navigation elements (elements "integrated into the content-bearing pages of the site" -- page 58), and remote navigation elements (elements that are "external to the basic hierarchy of a Web site and provide an alternative bird’s-eye view of the site’s content" -- p. 63).
The second half of the book describes how the authors work with their clients to design Web sites. Their development cycle includes periods of research, design, prototyping, production, and long-term operation. The book concludes with a case study of the Henry Ford Health System Web site.
Bookmaking comment: The early chapters use as many as four levels of headings (in addition to the chapter title). The table of contents, however, lists only chapter titles and the first-level headings. Expanding the table of contents to include second-level headings would give readers needed detail. The index is adequate.
Web Navigation: Defining the User Experience, by Jennifer Fleming.
This book explores the elements of effective, usable Web site design. In addition to this useful and important discussion, the author adds a generous dose of excitement. Throughout the book, cameo portraits of major web designers give us just a taste of their philosophies and current concerns. The resulting book is a mixture of solid design principles and tantalizing design possibilities.
Jennifer Fleming believes that navigation is "much more than just the study of buttons and sidebars. It’s the study of movement in space, of interactions, of user goals and how to facilitate them. It’s as much about removing barriers as it is about constructing roads" (page xi). This broad definition gives Fleming the freedom to consider far more than the basic navigational devices that move user around. In fact, it seems to me that in much of her book, navigation is synonymous with usability.
Fleming doesn’t skimp on her discussion of basic navigation, however. Chapter 2, "Ten Qualities of Successful Navigation" reviews design standards that help users make successful use of a Web site. In addition, Chapter 4, "Site Architecture," reviews basic navigational devices as part of a larger discussion of site infrastructure and content.
Fleming’s approach to web design is strongly visual. Chapter 5, "Interface and Interaction Design," examines how visual communication design can affect navigation. This chapter discusses the concepts of continuity in space, visual hierarchies, and metaphor, as they are used online. Coming from a print background, I do not like some of the featured Web sites as much as Fleming does. For example, the pages from www.atlasmagazine.com included in the "Gallery" chapter are elegant, but their minimalist labels seem too skimpy to me. I think that the conflict between style and technical clarity was resolved on this site in favor of style. Most often, writers of technical content should resolve that conflict in favor of clarity.
Using examples, Web Navigation analyzes different types of Web sites (shopping, community, entertainment, identity, learning, and information sites). Every chapter includes lists of relevant resources, and the CD-ROM includes sample applications and scripts, an extensive list of Internet resources, and links to all Web sites discussed in the book.
Bookmaking comment: This book has wide margins that provide ample space for notations. Drop quotations and resource lists are positioned in the margins, providing visual variety. This is a beautifully designed, highly readable book. The index is adequate.
Nancy Allison is a freelance technical writer specializing in online help. Her e-mail address is gardener@world.std.com.
Copyright © 2000 Nancy Allison submitted to the STC for use in Hyperviews:Online.
Volume 3, # 1