The Tube and Websites
I am in London right now on my way to web development conference with the tool we use to make websites. In my travel journal Thursday I wrote more about the trip. I was not planning to write till I got to Copenhagen because I thought that was where I would get relevant material for the blog. Turns out you just have to use public transit to write a blog about software, the Internet, training and technology.
Navigation, the ways we tell people to move around our websites needs to be clear enough for those using our sites to understand the site without guidance. The London transportation system is great, and even with any and all of its flaws it has it is much better than anything we can dream of in Denver. The problem with the London transportation system is there are gaps in the “navigation”.
If you use the London transportation system often then you are more aware of the paradigms that appear to be gaps to people who do not use the system often (I had not been in London in 5 years).
The same is true when you understand the paradigms are created in websites. For example, if you create a navigation structure based on how you organize your internal business model this may not be clear to the public using your site.
The role of a good website is to get people to the right information. People do not want to have to click around to find things, they want to see a clear path to get to the information they want. Calls to action including call us, buy this, contact us, get more information need to be clear and compelling for a site to work.
When we work with clients we help them understand the role of navigation. We walk through how an end user might understand the navigation and then we work with an artist to make it all come together. Good navigation also supports SEO (link to Drilling Deeper).
You may look at the current Denver DataMan website (Aug. 2010) and say, “this is a lot like the London transit system” and you would be very correct. We are currently engaging Veal Creative to help us generate the art to build a clearer and more user friendly website. However, just like the cobbler’s son our shoes come after those of our clients.
