Web Navigation Systems for Information Seeking

Web browser is used as the major tool for information seeking on the Internet today. However, because of the vast information space on the Web, people often feel entangled and disoriented when overloaded with massive amount of information, a problem often referred to as “getting lost”.

Web navigation systems provide assistance to guide users in the web information space. A good navigation system can ease the problem of getting lost and improve information seeking effectiveness. Common navigation tools include menu, sitemap, navigation trail, etc. Navigation is also a key factor of web usability (Palmer, 2002) which studies the ease-of-use of web applications and interfaces.

Here I present an evaluation framework to examine major web navigation systems from a human information behavior and user interface perspective. The framework focuses on content structure and ease-of-access, two of the most important features of web navigation systems. The advantages and weaknesses of each type of web navigation system will be discussed.

I organized it in a course module (see below) and the manuscript can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265685771_Web_Navigation_Systems_for_Information_Seeking

Web navigation systems for information seeking

Metro style on the wall

I found this on the wall of the SPSU Stinger restaurant. I like the metro style.

Metro style on the wall, a photo by Dr.jz on Flickr.

Site Map 2.0

Just some casual thoughts about the new site map features for better information organization, search, and share:

1. Structured and separated from its presentation: this makes it searchable. The search based on the structure is much more effective and efficient than search the whole page. Google site map is on the right track.
2. Multi-perspectives (path): the structure of the site map should reflect multiple perspectives or dimensions of information. Current site map or menus are always fixed and the same in every session. Many types of information have the characteristics of multi-categorization, which means they can be categorized in different schemes by different dimensions.This will lead to a resource with multiple path.
3. Rich navigation information embedded: it is not just in a hierarchical structure, but also with rich navigation information, such as tags, links to related resource, etc.
4. Dynamic and client oriented: it can be customized in presentation on the client side, supporting common information seeking features like filtering, marking (favorites), tracking (most visited, history), etc. The customization can be saved and synchronized from the server when the site map is changed.

Explain IA Creative Work

IA Institute had a nice competition event on explaining IA. Below is the slide show of all submissions, which are hosted on flickr.com.

Design for Consistency: Yes-No, Ok-Cancel

The other day I went to BP and added some gas. At the end, it asked if I wanted a receipt. "Yes", I thought, but then carelessly, I hit the "No" button - a mistake. This is not the first time I did it. BP's machine has the "Yes" button on the right and "No" button on the left, which is opposite to my assumption.

And another time, I went to the Bank of America website and it asked me to upgrade my login process. OK, I thought, filled in all information and hit "Continue" - wrong, I hit the "Cancel" button - the "Cancel" button was on the left and the "Continue" was on the right. Again, it is opposite to my assumption and I was careless.

These seem like small design issues but they definitely affect our lives. Mr. Nielsen had a nice discussion on that (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ok-cancel.html) and I really feel so. Such issues cannot be solved universally, as people all have different culture, tradition, and habits. But at least within one site or application, the consistency needs to be verified and enforced. Otherwise small issues like this are really annoying.

Enterprise Information Architecture by Rosenfeld

Check out this SlideShare Presentation (shared by Louis):

Enterprise Information Architecture: Because users don't care about your org chart

View more presentations from Louis Rosenfeld.

Too much content on homepage?

A homepage, or a front page, is the landing page of a website. There are tons of usability guidelines for homepage design (see a list below), but one of least discussed questions is: how much content should be put on the homepage? Usually a homepage contains the following content:

• Recent news or updates
• Feature contents preview
• Summary of sub-sections
• All sorts of gadgets and links
• Advertisement (they take a lot of spaces!)
• Other common contents like title, menu, footer, etc.

The idea of including as much content as possible follows a flat structure design. So that users can quickly navigate to the content they desire. However, the problem is a user can lose the focus easily. A heavy loaded homepage (like nba.com) may actually slow down a user's navigation because he/she spends more time on browsing the homepage. On the other hand, a too simple homepage (like google.com) may also slow down a user's operation if he/she has to follow a certain path of clicks to the desired content every time.
So, how much content is enough and balanced for a homepage? I think a general 7+-2 rule may offer some help:

• Divide the homepage into sections (chunks); include at most 7+-2 of these chunks. A section can be defined as visually and logically related contents. They may be of difference sizes.
• Include no more than 7+-2 items in each chunk/section and use "view more" links to link to the section home page.

I don't think this is a universal answer. It depends on the type of websites, users, and contents. Web analytics should reveal more about these.
Homepage design:

• http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020512.html
• http://webstyleguide.com/wsg2/site/home.html
• http://www.addicottweb.com/2009/06/make-your-homepage-content-more-usable/

The beginning of all understanding is classification." -- Hayden White.

I first read this in the book Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (the Polar Bear book), by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville (1998); of course this is another good book on web development (the 3rd edition is the most recent one).

Hayden White is a historian and professor at UC Santa Cruz and Stanford. This simple statement reflects classification's role in information management and processing (especially analytical processing). Classification is the basic, and the most important, technique to organize and understand information, thus gain knowledge from it. It is a critical success factor for website development; also an important skill for a knowledge worker in this information age. Read more about Craig Stroupe's ideas on White and his process of understanding. Or you really have some time you can read this paper by Barbara H. Kwasnik