In the 1990’s I wrote often about information dystopias. In 1994 I said:
It’s clear to me that the information highway isn’t much about information. It’s about trying to find a new basis for our economy. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like the way information is treated in that economy. We know what kind of information sells, and what doesn’t.
A structure is defined as “any assemblage of materials which is intended to sustain loads” when applied to a website it is redefined as “any assemblage of information which is intended to sustain access”.
The behaviour of these structures is precisely what we have been designing. The entry points, the navigation methods, the taxonomy and the labelling have all been carefully thought out and planned to ensure the information is easily accessible and navigable.
Arguably the most important aspect of a website, providing the ability to travel around the information system the navigation is full of potential failure points.
The design of navigation, whether it is to be horizontal or vertical, drop-down or side positioned will depend on the size, use and complexity of the information. The failure point here is that the wrong navigation design is chosen and as a result the site is less navigable at least and unnavigable at worst.
The testing of the navigation is something that starts at the inception of the information architecture. Sorting and classifying the content into a taxonomy is a crucial stage in navigation design. However, the biggest problem here is that “information seekers need to discover that path to a piece of information in the same way that the taxonomist conceived it” (Tunkelang 2009), meaning that our way of classifying the content is different to another and we need to achieve the best guess by validating our ideas using card sorting or other methods.
Please note: This is an ongoing post.
