Chapter 11: Navigation and Inflection

Desktop applications, Web sites, and devices all have one particular attribute in common that, if improperly designed, becomes a critical obstacle to usability: navigation. The user must be able to navigate efficiently through the features and facilities of a program, Web site, or device. He must also be able to stay oriented in the program as he moves from screen to screen.

A user can navigate if he always understands what he has to do next, knows what state the program, site, or device is in, and knows how to find the tools he needs. This chapter discusses the issues surrounding navigation, and how to better help users navigate through interactive products.

Navigation Is Excise

As hinted at in Chapter 10, the most important thing to realize about navigation is that, in almost all cases, it represents pure excise, or something close to it. Except in games where the goal is to navigate successfully through a maze of obstacles, navigating through software does not meet user goals, needs, or desires. Unnecessary or difficult navigation thus becomes a major frustration to users. In fact, it is the authors' opinion that poorly designed navigation presents the number-one problem in the design of any software application or system— desktop, Web-based, or otherwise. It is also the place where the programmer's implementation model is made most apparent to the user. The authors have yet to see an application or Web site that could not benefit from additional attention paid to its navigational structures.




About Face 2.0(c) The Essentials of Interaction Design
About Face 2.0(c) The Essentials of Interaction Design
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2006
Pages: 263

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