Is there an overarching metaphor or analogy to some way of
organizing things that is well understood and can naturally
be used here to organize the content?
Organizational metaphors: use organizations we know
and structure a site the way the organization is.
Good use: An automobile dealership might
use the departments of the dealership to organize their site:
new car sales, used car sales, repair, service.
Bad use: don't
use the internal organization of a corporation to present
information to users though, since users do not usually `interface'
with a corporation according to its internal structure. For
instance, if I want to buy a car I really don't care if it
is corporate headquarters accounting dept. which determines
whether my Fire Engine red is in stock.
Functional Metaphors: Organize the
site by what you can do.
Good use: In a library you can browse, search via
catalog, ask a librarian for help. Airplane company you might
want to know about arrival and departure times, Book a flight,
change reservations. These options are the sort that
one finds on a VUI (voice user interface) which structures
interaction according to the high frequency tasks users have.
Bad Use: If the tasks people can perform depend on
the topic they have in mind, then they should select the topic
first, then the task. E.g. suppose I want to order water pipes
or electrical wire. I should choose the category I'm interested
in -- water: pipes, or electrics: wiring -- before clicking
on place an order.
Visual metaphors: Use graphic elements that are well
established.
Good Use: An icon family that is well designed will
make sense. Use key exemplars or prototypes images to
refer to the whole group. E.g. generic cat rather than
Siamese. E.g. Yellow pages for a service directory. Another
visual metaphor is a small bookstore where you browse the
shelves with the subject headers above the bookcases. Obviously
this doesn't scale well as the number of topics or the fineness
of distinctions increases.
Bad Use: Where the visual metaphor doesn't bring the
salient choices to the front. Some things work in 3D
space, where there is plenty of interaction and fail in 2D
space. Or they work in real life because there are people
to help, or the same location serves many functions and so
they don't really have much choice, they just come to the
counter and ask for what they want. E.g. Southwest
airlines old site used a disastrous visual metaphor.
|
