August 2007
Beginner
416 pages
12h 16m
English
Content preview from Designing Web NavigationBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
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Chapter 1. Introducing Web Navigation
"Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified."
—Vannevar Bush As We May Think
Navigation plays a major role in shaping our experiences on the Web. It provides access to information in a way that enhances understanding, reflects brand, and lends to overall credibility of a site. And ultimately, web navigation and the ability to find information have a financial impact for stakeholders.
Navigation design is a task that is not merely limited to choosing a row of buttons. It's much broader, and, at the same time, more subtle than that. The navigation designer coordinates user goals with business goals. This requires an understanding of each, as well as a deep knowledge of information organization, page layout, and design presentation. This chapter paints a broad context for web navigation to help you better appreciate not just its purpose, but its potential scope of importance.
CONSIDERING NAVIGATION
When web navigation works well, it's underwhelming. Navigation is best when it's not noticed at all. It's like the officiating of a sports match. The referee may make dozens of good decisions throughout the game, and you may not even know he's there. But with one bad call, the ref is suddenly the center of attention for thousands of booing spectators.
Figure 1-1 shows a news article from the international version of the BBC web site ...
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I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.