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The target user must be the focus of navigation design because users will select navigation methods to fit their logic, not that of designers and programmers. Scientific testing proves that people approach and use websites in various ways, using a variety of methods. The following table was adapted from "usability for the Web" by Tom Brink, Darren Gregle and Scott Wood; Morgan Kaufman Publishers. |
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Navigation Models: |
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Assumptions: |
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Design Implications: |
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- Users have perfect knowledge
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- This is a best-case scenario, and provides a useful point of comparison.
- Even when users are superhuman, they benefit from short efficient paths to their goals.
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- Users only know what they've seen (they're information limited).
- Users are psychologically perfect, that is to say, they believe they possess perfect reasoning.
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- Also unrealistic, but a useful point of comparison.
- Make sure links provide adequate cues to the content they lead to.
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Satisficing*
(yes, that word is correct) |
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- Users avoid remembering and planning.
- Users make decisions based on information
that is immediately perceptible.
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- Make sure pages function independently.
- Organize the page to make the most important and linked immediately visible.
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- Users actively use the cues available
to try to infer the structure of a website.
- Users will often take a path they understand that fits into this mental map rather than risk a shortcut that doesn't fit the mental map.
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- Organize the site simply so that users can easily
conceptualize it.
- Design the appearance of the navigation bar and site maps to reinforce this mental map.
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- When users find a path that works, they tend to remember and repeat that path.
- Users avoid reasoning through alternatives if they already know a successful solution.
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- Since people will tend to repeat what worked the first time, make sure the most obvious solution is also reasonably efficient.
- Use distinctive landmarks and orientation cues to help people recognize where they've been before.
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- Users try to get as much as possible at one location before going elsewhere.
- Users refine their goals as they explore information.
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- Help users evaluate the scope of your
website and evaluate their progress through it.
- Enable spontaneous discovery by providing context, structure, and related topics.
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- Users have limited knowledge and reasoning ability.
- Users can make tradeoffs to determine what mental resources to apply and therefore which strategy to use in navigating.
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- Minimize the mental costs of sense-making, decision making, remembering, and planning.
- Different types of users, tasks and mind-sets can lead to different navigation strategies, so support multiple strategies.
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*vb: to obtain an outcome that is good enough. Satisficing action can be
contrasted with maximizing action, which seeks the biggest, or with optimizing
action, which seeks the best.
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