Designing Web Navigation

Description

Thoroughly rewritten for today's web environment, this bestselling book offers a fresh look at a fundamental topic of web site navigation design. Amid all the changes to the Web in the past decade, the basic problems of creating a good web navigation system remain. Designing Web Navigation demonstrates that good navigation is not about technology-it's about the ways people find information, and how you guide them.

Full Description

Thoroughly rewritten for today's web environment, this bestselling book offers a fresh look at a fundamental topic of web site development: navigation design. Amid all the changes to the Web in the past decade, and all the hype about Web 2.0 and various "rich" interactive technologies, the basic problems of creating a good web navigation system remain. Designing Web Navigation demonstrates that good navigation is not about technology-it's about the ways people find information, and how you guide them.

Ideal for beginning to intermediate web designers, managers, other non-designers, and web development pros looking for another perspective, Designing Web Navigation offers basic design principles, development techniques and practical advice, with real-world examples and essential concepts seamlessly folded in. How does your web site serve your business objectives? How does it meet a user's needs? You'll learn that navigation design touches most other aspects of web site development. This book:

Provides the foundations of web navigation and offers a framework for navigation design
Paints a broad picture of web navigation and basic human information behavior
Demonstrates how navigation reflects brand and affects site credibility
Helps you understand the problem you're trying to solve before you set out to design
Thoroughly reviews the mechanisms and different types of navigation
Explores "information scent" and "information shape"
Explains "persuasive" architecture and other design concepts
Covers special contexts, such as navigation design for web applications
Includes an entire chapter on tagging

While Designing Web Navigation focuses on creating navigation systems for large, information-rich sites serving a business purpose, the principles and techniques in the book also apply to small sites. Well researched and cited, this book serves as an excellent reference on the topic, as well as a superb teaching guide. Each chapter ends with suggested reading and a set of questions that offer exercises for experiencing the concepts in action.

Table of Contents

Foundations of Web Navigation
1. Chapter 1 Introducing Web Navigation
  1. CONSIDERING NAVIGATION
  2. THE NEED FOR NAVIGATION
  3. WEB NAVIGATION DESIGN
  4. SUMMARY
  5. QUESTIONS
  6. FURTHER READING
2. Chapter 2 Understanding Navigation
  1. INFORMATION SEEKING
  2. SEEKING INFORMATION ONLINE
  3. WEB BROWSING BEHAVIOR
  4. INFORMATION SHAPE
  5. EXPERIENCING INFORMATION
  6. SUMMARY
  7. QUESTIONS
  8. FURTHER READING
3. Chapter 3 Mechanisms of Navigation
  1. STEP NAVIGATION
  2. PAGING NAVIGATION
  3. BREADCRUMB TRAIL
  4. TREE NAVIGATION
  5. SITE MAPS
  6. DIRECTORIES
  7. TAG CLOUDS
  8. A–Z INDEXES
  9. NAVIGATION BARS AND TABS
  10. VERTICAL MENU
  11. DYNAMIC MENUS
  12. DROP-DOWN MENUS
  13. VISUALIZING NAVIGATION
  14. BROWSER MECHANISMS
  15. SUMMARY
  16. QUESTIONS
  17. FURTHER READING
4. Chapter 4 Types of Navigation
  1. CATEGORIES OF NAVIGATION
  2. PAGE TYPES
  3. SUMMARY
  4. QUESTIONS
  5. FURTHER READING
5. Chapter 5 Labeling Navigation
  1. THE VOCABULARY PROBLEM
  2. ASPECTS OF GOOD LABELS
  3. LABELING SYSTEMS
  4. PERSUASIVE LABELS
  5. TRANSLATING LABELS
  6. SOURCES OF LABELS
  7. SUMMARY
  8. QUESTIONS
  9. FURTHER READING
A Framework for Navigation Design
1. Chapter 6 Evaluation
  1. QUALITIES OF SUCCESSFUL NAVIGATION
  2. EVALUATION METHODS
  3. SUMMARY
  4. QUESTIONS
  5. FURTHER READING
2. Chapter 7 Analysis
  1. BUSINESS GOALS
  2. UNDERSTANDING CONTENT
  3. UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY
  4. USER INTELLIGENCE
  5. PERFORMING PRIMARY USER RESEARCH
  6. CONSOLIDATING RESEARCH FINDINGS
  7. SCENARIOS
  8. SUMMARY
  9. QUESTIONS
  10. FURTHER READING
3. Chapter 8 Architecture
  1. PERSUASIVE ARCHITECTURE
  2. NAVIGATION CONCEPT
  3. INFORMATION STRUCTURES
  4. ORGANIZATIONAL SCHEMES
  5. SITE MAPS
  6. SUMMARY
  7. QUESTIONS
  8. FURTHER READING
4. Chapter 9 Layout
  1. DETERMINING NAVIGATION PATHS
  2. VISUAL LOGIC
  3. PAGE TEMPLATES
  4. WIREFRAMES
  5. SUMMARY
  6. QUESTIONS
  7. FURTHER READING
5. Chapter 10 Presentation
  1. INFORMATION DESIGN
  2. INTERACTING WITH NAVIGATION
  3. GRAPHIC DESIGN
  4. SPECIFYING NAVIGATION
  5. SUMMARY
  6. QUESTIONS
  7. FURTHER READING
Navigation in Special Contexts
1. Chapter 11 Navigation and Search
  1. NAVIGATION PRIOR TO SEARCH
  2. NAVIGATION AFTER SEARCH
  3. FACETED BROWSE
  4. SUMMARY
  5. QUESTIONS
  6. FURTHER READING
2. Chapter 12 Navigation and Social Tagging Systems
  1. TAGGING
  2. NAVIGATING SOCIAL CLASSIFICATIONS
  3. SUMMARY
  4. QUESTIONS
  5. FURTHER READING
3. Chapter 13 Navigation and Rich Web Applicatios
  1. RICH WEB APPLICATIONS
  2. NAVIGATING RICH WEB APPLICATIONS
  3. DESIGNING RICH WEB APPLICATIONS
  4. SUMMARY
  5. QUESTIONS
  6. FURTHER READING

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Product Details

Title:

Designing Web Navigation

By:

James Kalbach

Publisher:

O'Reilly Media

Formats:

Print
Ebook
Safari Books Online

Print Release:

August 2007

Ebook Release:

July 2008

Pages:

416

Print ISBN:

978-0-596-52810-2

| ISBN 10:

0-596-52810-8

Ebook ISBN:

978-0-596-15289-5

| ISBN 10:

0-596-15289-2

Customer Reviews

About the Author

James Kalbach

James Kalbach has a degree in library science from Rutgers University, as well as a master's in music theory and composition. He is currently a Human Factors Engineer with LexisNexis and previously served as head of information architecture with Razorfish Germany. He is an active speaker and author on information architecture and usability in Germany, where he helped co-found an IA community.

View James Kalbach's full profile page.

Colophon

The animal on the cover of Designing Web Navigation is a margay cat (Leopardus wiedii). Native to Mexico, Panama, Colombia , Peru, and Paraguay, these smallish (9-20 pound) cats live in humid evergreen forests. They love to climb, and can rotate their hind legs 180 degress, which lets them run head-first down trees in a manner similar to squirrels. The margay is also able to hang from branches using only a hind foot.

The large eyes of a margay help them hunt at night; their diet consists of small mammals, birds, and fruit. Their pelts are prized by humans, and hunting, combined with destruction of their natural habitats, has led to their endangerment. Margays can live for up to 20 years, but do not have large litters of kittens and reproduce only once every two years. Once listed as vulnerable to extinction, preservation efforts have have helped increase the margay population throughout the world. Though they remain on the list of endangered species, the outlook for their survival is positive.

The cover image of Designing Web Navigation is from Wood's Animate Creation. The cover font is Adobe ITC Garamond. The text font is Hoefler Gotham.

O'Reilly Books & Videos

Optimizing the User Experience

Foundations of Web Navigation

Chapter 1 Introducing Web Navigation

Chapter 2 Understanding Navigation

Chapter 3 Mechanisms of Navigation

Chapter 4 Types of Navigation

Chapter 5 Labeling Navigation

A Framework for Navigation Design

Chapter 6 Evaluation

Chapter 7 Analysis

Chapter 8 Architecture

Chapter 9 Layout

Chapter 10 Presentation

Navigation in Special Contexts

Chapter 11 Navigation and Search

Chapter 12 Navigation and Social Tagging Systems

Chapter 13 Navigation and Rich Web Applicatios

Colophon

James Kalbach