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BOOK REVIEW Web Navigation: Designing the User Experience Jennifer Fleming, 1998 Cambridge, MA: O'Reilly & Associates ISBN: 1-56592-351-0 "In fact, this book is not about rules at all. It is about principles and guidelines for designing effective navigation. It is about what has worked for a variety of sites and why." Reviewed by Pawan Vora and Roger Tilson @ the reviewers Pawan Vora is a Human Factors Engineer at U S WEST in Denver, Colorado. Roger Tilson is a User Involvement Specialist for IBM in Austin, Texas. If "content is king," "navigation is queen." And, you need both king and queen to make a Web site usable :-) Despite this, most Web design books have no more than a chapter or two on designing navigation. So, we were glad to see a book devoted to Web navigation. And, for the most part, we enjoyed reading the book. But, before you go and buy this book, let us make it clear that this book is NOT a navigation rule book. If you are looking for answers to specific navigation questions such as, Should I use the navigation bar on the left, right, or at the top? How should I use image rollovers to create effective navigation? Should I use frames?, and so forth, you will be disappointed. This book doesn't offer advice such as "Do this. it works!" In fact, this book is not about rules at all. It is about principles and guidelines for designing effective navigation. It is also about the different navigation approaches that has worked for a variety of sites and why. The book is divided into two parts. The first part (chapters 1 to 6) focuses on the foundational principles of navigation design. Here, Jennifer Fleming pulls from a number of different sources to provide the best information that is currently available for assisting designers in facilitating Web navigation. The second part (chapters 7 to 12) looks at navigation design for a variety of purpose-oriented sites: shopping sites, community sites, entertainment sites, identity sites, learning sites, and information sites. In the second part, the author also offers case studies of "Who is doing it right." This includes companies such as Amazon.com (for e-commerce sites), Firefly (for community sites), Riven Journals (for entertainment sites), DigitalThink (for Learning sites), IBM (for Identity Sites), computers.com (for Information Site), and many others. If you have been designing Web sites for a while and have a background in human-computer interaction and/or user-interface design, when you start reading the book, you may feel that "I already know this stuff." But, be patient! What you are looking for, you will find in chapters 7 to 12. What is particularly useful and interesting in these later chapters is the author's categorization of navigation design goals into three tiers: basic, purpose-oriented, and topic- or audience-oriented. In our opinion, many Web sites fail, despite their attention to navigation, because they focus mainly on the basic or first-tier goals: Where am I? Where can I go? How will I get there? and How can I get back to where I once was? Although these are valid navigation goals, they do not necessarily match the purpose of the site or goals of the users--what Jennifer Fleming calls the second- and third-tier goals. Here's an example of second- and third-tier goals for community sites: Second Tier (purpose- oriented questions) How can I participate? What are the rules? Can I keep my identity private? When will I get feedback? Should I trust what people tell me? What can I learn about the people in this community? Where do I turn for help? Third Tier (topic- or audience- oriented questions) How can I talk about a specific problem (bedwetting, tantrums)? How can I talk about a specific age or developmental stage? Is my child's identity safe, as well as my own? Will chats and events take away from my family time, or are they offered when it's convenient for me? Another useful piece of advice Jennifer Fleming gives us is that we, the designers, immerse ourselves in the environment we are trying to create. Mind you, this is beyond doing user profiles and task analyses. This is about becoming the user and understanding the user. This is about researching user goals. For example, to design effective navigation for Community-oriented sites, Jennifer suggests that we snoop and loiter in Web communities, observe social rules and behavior in a family gathering, learn how people learn the rules of social behavior, and so forth. Doing so helps us design the site to help users achieve their goals. This is important on the Web because goal analysis is more important than simply doing the task analysis -- because you may be doing task analysis for a perceived user goal that may well be irrelevant! Although we liked the book for the most part, we felt that the quality of the book was compromised. It seemed that, for the sake of completeness, the author addresses everything related to Web navigation, from understanding user needs to prototyping to usability testing. And so some topics receive rather superficial treatment. Perhaps, this was a result of the the author wanting to satisfy beginners as well as seasoned Web designers. We believe the author should have kept her focus exclusively on Web navigation. Despite this shortcoming, we recommend this book not just to casual or novice Web designers, but also to those extensively involved in designing Web sites. © Internet Technical Group Last update: December 6, 1998 URL: http://www.sandia.gov/itg/newsletter/dec98/review_navigation.html hosted by Sandia National Labs Disclaimer: Neither Sandia Corporation, the United States Government, nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately-owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by Sandia Corporation, the United States Government, or any agency thereof. The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of Sandia Corporation, the United States Government or any agency thereof.