[WEB4LIB] Re: web navigation

[Prentiss Riddle]

> From web4lib at webjunction.org  Fri Sep  3 12:51:47 1999
> Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 10:43:08 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Andrew Mutch <amutch at waterford.lib.mi.us>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: web navigation
> 
> But ... let me approach this from another angle.  Something seems wrong with
> this from a navigational angle.  The designers of this approach appear to
> present 2 levels of navigation on one page.  At the top level, the site is
> divided up into "global" categories like "Student Life, Alumni, etc.".  For
> some of these categories, you can select from the menu on the left to go to
> the "directory page" for that category.  When you get to that "directory
> page", the listings usually don't correspond to the listings that appear in
> the right-side menus on the home page -- it doesn't appear that there is any
> consistency to these menus and any organization of the sub-sites.

I agree with you, but in our Public Affairs folks' defense I should
point out that you're looking at a very incomplete prototype
(http://www.rice.edu/newhome/).  They were brave enough to release it
early for public comment -- they've really only designed the top level,
and the links all point to second- and third-level pages from our
existing system.  So at least some of the confusion you note is a
result of the incomplete state of the prototype.

That said, I've probably been guilty myself of offering expedient links
to pages rather deep in our structure (is this what the database people
mean when they use the term "drilling down"?)  The platonic ideal I've
shot for is what I call a "transparent hierarchy" -- where you have
broad categories but offer links to frequently-sought items within each
category, which not only serve to save a couple of mouse clicks but
also serve to illustrate the meaning of the categories.  Yahoo uses
this, as does the "below-the-fold" section of the existing Rice web
site:

	http://www.rice.edu/

But of course the real world isn't truly hierarchical, and sometimes
the most useful broad categories overlap, so you end up putting things
in more than one place.  Also, sometimes the most illustrative or
high-demand links are not a neat two steps down on the tree but are
three, four, or N steps down.  I think most of my choices have been
justified, but it sounds as though a number of my links may violate
your principles.

> It seems to me that if one is going to present a navigational scheme on the
> home page, this navigational scheme needs to be carried through the entire
> site, including the sub-sites. 

That sounds good in the abstract, but the reality of our web is that it
is highly decentralized, with literally hundreds of departments
collaborating on it (not to mention thousands of individuals).  We can
educate, urge, and cajole but I don't think we're ever going to get it
to all fit nicely in a top-down scheme.  I see our role as one of
managing the chaos rather than trying to eraducate it.

-- Prentiss Riddle ("aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada") riddle at rice.edu
-- Webmaster, Rice University / http://is.rice.edu/~riddle