Which navigation tools?

Print topic Print topic Previous topic  Next topic

Even the best information is worthless if users can’t find it.

When deadlines are close and budgets are tight, it’s better to provide medium-quality information but excellent navigation than to provide excellent information but poor navigation.

Expand /Collapse All Subsections

Questions that navigation must answer

When navigating a document, users ask the same questions as when they use a road map or city map. This includes:

questions about how to get somewhere (guidance)

questions about their own position (orientation)

Guidance and orientation are key factors of user experience. When guidance and orientation are good, users feel confident and satisfied. If guidance and orientation are poor, users feel lost, insecure, and frustrated.

The key questions that navigation needs to answer are:

Where am I?

What information can I find here?

How hard will it be to acquire this information? Will it be fun, or will it be tedious? Will it be simple, or will it be difficult? How long will it take?

Where should I go?

How do I get there?

Did I get all the relevant information, or did I miss anything important?

How do I get back to where I came from?

For beginners, navigation is often especially difficult:

Beginners often don’t know what a particular function or feature is called. This makes it hard to find the corresponding description.

Beginners are sometimes completely unaware that a particular feature even exists—yet they need to find it to be able to accomplish their goals.

Navigation tools

Navigation tools that work in printed manuals and in online help alike are:

Table of contents

Multiple information paths

Alphabetical index

Cross-references and links

Navigation tools that work only in printed manuals are:

Running headers and running footers

Page numbers

Part labels and section labels

Separator pages

Navigation tools that work only in online help are:

Context sensitivity

Search

History

Browse sequence

Breadcrumb trail

Favorites