Designing Web Navigation: Optimizing the User Experience

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.

Author Kalbach creates the perfect guide for the ever-evolving world of web navigation and covers issues that have developed in the past decade. The book focuses on design principles and development techniques, with case studies and essential concepts seamlessly folded in.

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.

Dedication; Preface; SCOPE OF THIS BOOK; AUDIENCE FOR THIS BOOK; ORGANIZATION OF THIS BOOK; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; HOW TO CONTACT US; SAFARI® ENABLED; ABOUT THE AUTHOR; ABOUT THE TECHNICAL REVIEWERS; Part I: Foundations of Web Navigation; Chapter 1: Introducing Web Navigation; 1.1 CONSIDERING NAVIGATION; 1.2 THE NEED FOR NAVIGATION; 1.3 WEB NAVIGATION DESIGN; 1.4 SUMMARY; 1.5 QUESTIONS; 1.6 FURTHER READING; Chapter 2: Understanding Navigation; 2.1 INFORMATION SEEKING; 2.2 SEEKING INFORMATION ONLINE; 2.3 WEB BROWSING BEHAVIOR; 2.4 INFORMATION SHAPE; 2.5 EXPERIENCING INFORMATION; 2.6 SUMMARY; 2.7 QUESTIONS; 2.8 FURTHER READING; Chapter 3: Mechanisms of Navigation; 3.1 STEP NAVIGATION; 3.2 PAGING NAVIGATION; 3.3 BREADCRUMB TRAIL; 3.4 TREE NAVIGATION; 3.5 SITE MAPS; 3.6 DIRECTORIES; 3.7 TAG CLOUDS; 3.8 A-Z INDEXES; 3.9 NAVIGATION BARS AND TABS; 3.10 VERTICAL MENU; 3.11 DYNAMIC MENUS; 3.12 DROP-DOWN MENUS; 3.13 VISUALIZING NAVIGATION; 3.14 BROWSER MECHANISMS; 3.15 SUMMARY; 3.16 QUESTIONS; 3.17 FURTHER READING; Chapter 4: Types of Navigation; 4.1 CATEGORIES OF NAVIGATION; 4.2 PAGE TYPES; 4.3 SUMMARY; 4.4 QUESTIONS; 4.5 FURTHER READING; Chapter 5: Labeling Navigation; 5.1 THE VOCABULARY PROBLEM; 5.2 ASPECTS OF GOOD LABELS; 5.3 LABELING SYSTEMS; 5.4 PERSUASIVE LABELS; 5.5 TRANSLATING LABELS; 5.6 SOURCES OF LABELS; 5.7 SUMMARY; 5.8 QUESTIONS; 5.9 FURTHER READING; Part II: A Framework for Navigation Design; Chapter 6: Evaluation; 6.1 QUALITIES OF SUCCESSFUL NAVIGATION; 6.2 EVALUATION METHODS; 6.3 SUMMARY; 6.4 QUESTIONS; 6.5 FURTHER READING; Chapter 7: Analysis; 7.1 BUSINESS GOALS; 7.2 UNDERSTANDING CONTENT; 7.3 UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY; 7.4 USER INTELLIGENCE; 7.5 PERFORMING PRIMARY USER RESEARCH; 7.6 CONSOLIDATING RESEARCH FINDINGS; 7.7 SCENARIOS; 7.8 SUMMARY; 7.9 QUESTIONS; 7.10 FURTHER READING; Chapter 8: Architecture; 8.1 PERSUASIVE ARCHITECTURE; 8.2 NAVIGATION CONCEPT; 8.3 INFORMATION STRUCTURES; 8.4 ORGANIZATIONAL SCHEMES; 8.5 SITE MAPS; 8.6 SUMMARY; 8.7 QUESTIONS; 8.8 FURTHER READING; Chapter 9: Layout; 9.1 DETERMINING NAVIGATION PATHS; 9.2 VISUAL LOGIC; 9.3 PAGE TEMPLATES; 9.4 WIREFRAMES; 9.5 SUMMARY; 9.6 QUESTIONS; 9.7 FURTHER READING; Chapter 10: Presentation; 10.1 INFORMATION DESIGN; 10.2 INTERACTING WITH NAVIGATION; 10.3 GRAPHIC DESIGN; 10.4 SPECIFYING NAVIGATION; 10.5 SUMMARY; 10.6 QUESTIONS; 10.7 FURTHER READING; Part III: Navigation in Special Contexts; Chapter 11: Navigation and Search; 11.1 NAVIGATION PRIOR TO SEARCH; 11.2 NAVIGATION AFTER SEARCH; 11.3 FACETED BROWSE; 11.4 SUMMARY; 11.5 QUESTIONS; 11.6 FURTHER READING; Chapter 12: Navigation and Social Tagging Systems; 12.1 TAGGING; 12.2 NAVIGATING SOCIAL CLASSIFICATIONS; 12.3 SUMMARY; 12.4 QUESTIONS; 12.5 FURTHER READING; Chapter 13: Navigation and Rich Web Applicatios; 13.1 RICH WEB APPLICATIONS; 13.2 NAVIGATING RICH WEB APPLICATIONS; 13.3 DESIGNING RICH WEB APPLICATIONS; 13.4 SUMMARY; 13.5 QUESTIONS; 13.6 FURTHER READING; Colophon;