Activities are always made up of individual actions. The individual ac- tions a site visitor takes is the primary concern of usability. And the most common actions that occur on a Web site can be broken down into Morville and Rosenfeld’s four general types of information-seeking behaviors: fi nding everything, fi nding a few quality things, fi nding a specifi c thing, and refi nding something found before. 8
Finding Everything That There Is
Again, this type of behavior is pretty rare, like the fantasy scenario above. Google and other search engines are left to handle this type of search, and then individual users search on what the search en- gines have found. Unless you have a very small site (or a stalker), do not bank on anyone looking at every single thing on every single page.
Some Web sites include a site index page, which is an alphabeti- cal hyperlinked listing of every single page on the site. A site index might be useful as a last resort for someone trying to fi nd something or to see a list of everything. Other sites duplicate the spirit of a site
74 HOW TO DESIGN AND WRITE WEB PAGES TODAY
index by linking to every single page from the navigation area. On small sites, linking to every page from the navigation may not be an issue. But on sites with more than a few pages, trying to cram every- thing into the navigation often results in fl y-out or pop-up menus that try (and often fail) to manage the information overload. Chap- ters 15 and 20 will present approaches to simplifying navigation and building a shallow architecture that make those kinds of workarounds unnecessary.
Besides, because fi nding everything is such a rare user goal, it is better to concentrate your design efforts to address more common behaviors.
Finding a Few Quality Things
Finding a few quality things is a more typical behavior. Even photog- raphy enthusiasts rarely want to see every photograph someone’s ever taken—just a few compelling ones. Customers don’t have the time or interest to see every single item that an online electronics shop sells, and instead prefer a few that fi t their needs and price range. That type of information-seeking behavior is especially common when users are not exactly sure what they’re looking for, but have at least a vague idea.
Designing for this kind of user behavior can help determine what to include in your site navigation. For example, you might have a naviga- tion item that links to an overview of your portfolio; rather than list- ing every item in the portfolio as part of your navigation, you lead users to that particular area of your site. Once there, users might encounter a compelling overview page that uses thumbnail images and persua- sive written descriptions that entice users to click. As part of provid- ing wayfi nding, which is key to supporting the goals of browsing-like behavior, you might visually highlight the Portfolio item on your site navigation whenever someone is viewing any page related to your port- folio (see Chapter 15).
By providing wayfi nding devices such as visual cues in your naviga- tion, you can encourage users to explore other areas of your site simply because they can be confi dent of where in your site they are. Finding a few quality things is, in large part, an exploratory behavior. But a one- or two-word navigation item, “Resume” or “Design Portfolio,” may not be enough to entice otherwise curious users to click. A compelling,
USABILITY 75 hyperlinked image—such as a sample from your design portfolio, if you’re a designer—elsewhere on your page might be more appealing, simply because the content of the image may fi t better with the vague idea of what a visitor to your site is looking for.
A site with attractive previews and promotional content may even alter a user’s actions; visitors to a business’s Web site might discover a product or service that they didn’t even realize that they wanted or needed previously.
Finding a Specifi c Thing
Users are sometimes looking for a specifi c thing. Creating a usable de- sign for that kind of behavior involves helping users to fi nd what they know (or reasonably expect) appears on a given Web site. Web site statistics, which many Web hosts provide (see Chapter 24), sometimes reveal that this behavior begins with a Web search; I often fi nd that people have searched Google for my name plus “vita” or “curriculum vitae,” which are the words for an academic resume.
Other examples of known items that users often expect include About and Contact pages. An About page may be a history or biogra- phy that offers more information about the person, business, or orga- nization a Web site represents. Users also expect some means for con- tacting the person or people behind a Web site. Links to these kinds of specifi c pages should appear in most sites’ navigation areas. A home page may even have a brief About Us or About Me blurb that links to the full About page.
Sometimes users will be so moved and interested by site content that they will share it as a link on Twitter or Facebook; that may result in a new user visiting your site on someone else’s recommendation. Such a user might want to move back up to your site’s overview pages or home page. A site navigation that uses wayfi nding devices to indicate the general area of your site that a visitor is in provides a necessary sense of You are here (see Chapter 15). A link to your home page on every page, usually in your site’s branding (see Chapter 14), may also benefi t curious users. The presence of site navigation and home links (and a compelling design) may actually transform visitor behavior from seek- ing a specifi c thing, even something recommended by someone else, to fi nding a few more quality things.
76 HOW TO DESIGN AND WRITE WEB PAGES TODAY
Finding a Thing Found Before
There is a reason that most Web browsers have a bookmarking function, and that sites like Diigo are so popular: when someone fi nds something useful on the Web, they bookmark it to return for future reference.
Not always, though. We’ve all had the frustrating experience of vaguely remembering a really interesting page or site, but not having any exact record of what or where it was.
This is where whole-page design and especially site branding comes into play (see Chapters 14 and 17). A strong visual design can help to cue users as to whether they have been to your site or a particular page on your site before. Visual cues, such as a memorable image or color scheme, can also help users to remember a page previously vis- ited. (That is why I advise against things like randomly displaying one of a set of images on a page. It’s a fun thing to design, but it is probably more fun for the designer to create than the user to experience on re- turn visits.)
OPERATIONS: HOW DO YOUR USERS