Chapter 5: Highly Navigable Software

Overview

If there’s any one thing you get out of this chapter, and nothing more, it should be this point: Don’t make your users jump through hoops to get what they need!

By and large, people these days are in a hurry. And if you read Chapter 4, “Managing Your Software’s Time,” you’re aware that many of us are impatient. We, as users, don’t want to go through a bunch of rigmarole just to get what we need. For example, if I’m on the phone with my editor and he needs my agent’s phone number and I don’t have it handy, I want to be able to open my contacts database and instantly get the answers, all with mouse clicks, since I can use the mouse with one hand while holding the phone in the other hand, but I can’t type well with one hand.

We’re all familiar with the term navigate when it comes to browsing the web (especially since Netscape’s web browser is called Navigator). But what does the term mean in reference to software in general? When I say navigate, I’m referring to how you get to where you need to be, or the order of tasks you use to accomplish what you need to do. For example, if you need to look up a phone number in your contacts program, do you need to open a menu, then open a second cascading menu, then watch a dialog box open, then click a bunch of choices in the dialog box, then click OK, and then…? Well, you get the idea. Instead, a better choice is that you click a toolbar button and instantly you see the list of contacts. Scroll down and you can find the one you need. Or, if the contact database is too huge, you should be able to easily type in the first couple of letters of the last name, for example, and quickly get to the item you need. The difference between the former and the latter is whether or not the software is highly navigable.

For this chapter, then, I would like to define highly navigable software as software that allows you to get to your information using a minimal number of mouse clicks and key presses without having to jump through hoops. (By jumping through hoops, I mean you don’t have to traverse several menus, for example, even though doing so requires only a few mouse clicks.) In this chapter, I show you how to make your software highly navigable. As you read this chapter, remember these words of wisdom: The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

While being literally true in geometry, this axiom is also true in using programs. Don’t make your users jump through hoops and navigate a gazillion menus to get to where they need to be. Let them go right there; let them follow a straight line.