The Navigation Challenge
October 09, 2008
I was trying to re-work the navigational structure on a website I knew very well (but did not create) when I realized a very important detail about myself and the way in which I use websites. Typically if I know the URL I enter it in the browser itself in order to save time. But that’s not always the way my audience browses the same site. Most people, I would imagine, actually make use of the navigation that we present to them.
On the particular site I was browsing at the time I gave myself a challenge; I decided to use that website only with the presented navigational structure, and at no time should I type the URL for a page manually. (Back and forward buttons, though discouraged, are acceptable because it doesn’t require foreknowledge of the site.)
So I tried the challenge for a bit.
…And I couldn’t find anything on the site! I knew where it was by title, but I couldn’t get to it by the expected paths. I showed it to someone else and presented them with the same challenge. …They didn’t do very well either. This of course was a really important finding, because if we as creators cannot navigate a website we cannot expect our users who may not have any knowledge of our site or organization to do any better.
What I’m getting at is that everyone involved in the process knew how to maneuver the site, and that was the problem. We needed to take a fresh look at the way people could or could not move around the site. And thankfully we caught the problems now before the slew of angry anti-navigation emails were sent our way.
Alternatively, if you need to figure out if your URL’s are really useful you could try to browse your content by only typing in the URL instead of using the on-page navigation schemes. In that case, people who may remember something about your content or structure but nothing about your navigational systems might thank you.
So, if you need to rethink a site that is very familiar to you… consider changing the way you use it, it may fill in the gaps for you.
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It’s crucial that we remember to account for all the… “least technically inclined” users when we user test things. And, of course, remove ourselves from the process. You lose perspective in just about everything when you get too close yourself.
Ben: Well said. It’s amazing how quickly it sneaks up on you too, especially when you’re working with something exclusively. And of course that’s why testing is so important — because even if we think we’re right on target it’s very possible that we’re not as removed as we think we are.