Web Navigation, Designing the User Experience
Jennifer Fleming, Author
Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
Reviewed by Jim Van Scyoc
Price $34.95
The first six chapters familiarize you with the concepts and principles of designing a web site so that the user can easily find the information he or she is looking for. Basic to this book is the premise that web site navigation must be approached from the viewpoint of the user, not the designer. To accomplish this, the designer must determine what the goals of the user are. These will not be the same as the goals of the person or company owning the site.
As a site designer, you have a good idea where the sections of a site are, and how to get there. But, can the casual browser or a less experienced user find his or her way around? Is getting from "here" to "there" and back again obvious, or a lesson in frustration? This book makes you think about basic questions that users have when they visit a web site.
These questions are broken down into three "tiers" starting with general navigation questions applicable to any web site (such as "Where am I?" and "Where can I go?"). From here you arrive at more specific questions, which vary according to the purpose of the web site. An example of these, for a site selling books, might be "How can I find books by a particular author?" or "Where can I get reviews or recommendations?"
The second half of the book illustrates the practice of navigation design in six different catagories of web sites, based on the purpose of those sites. (Examples of these catagories include shopping sites, entertainment sites and identity sites.)
Each of these chapters describes a category of site in detail and offers three case studies of web sites that have "done it right" in that category. Examples of sucessful sites include Amazon.com, Cafe Utne, IBM and Lycos. Each site is examined in detail to illustrate why it is successful. Note: a few of the sites are no longer available on line. (Such is the transcience of the web!)
Each type of site brings its own questions in the second and third tiers. Where a shopping site might bring up questions on the security of your financial information, a community site would bring up questions of "How do I participate?" or "Can I keep my identity private?"
The twelveth chapter is followed by a technical tips section, glossary, netography (web based bibliography) and bibliography. I found help in the tips section regarding tables and graphics, which helped me with my current project, the redesign of the Starr King Unitarian Universalist Church web site.
The CD included with the book contains web pages designed as a "launch pad," with links to the sites described in the book. It also indcludes the "netography" listed in the book. Lastly, it also contains software demos for some well-known web tools, such as Dreamweaver 1.2 and some graphics programs such as Fireworks and Image Ready.
Unfortunately, the on-line updated links which should be available at Jennifer's company, Square Circle Solutions, don't seem to be available. (It may be that Square Circle Solutions has gone the way of other dot-coms, or maybe just that the server was down when I tried to find it.) I did find an interview with her at http://www.highfivearchive.com/profile/past/1999/profile_9906.html which offers some insight into her philosophy of web design.
Product Information:
Web Navigation, Designing the User Experience
Jennifer Fleming, Author
Edited by Richard Koman
Copyright © May, 2001 by Jim Van Scyoc
Editor's Note:
Web Navigation, Designing the User Experience may be purchased online from O'Reilly & Associates for $27.96 after the User Group discount of 20%.