DISCLAIMER: I meant this post to be quite short… and I just realized I am writing more and more. As a result, the post covers stuff like information architecture as well… but maybe not in a way that is a thorough as it should be. I hope the result is still comprehensive enough…

The navigation is arguably the most important area in a website. From the navigation, the user should be able at a glance to create a mental model (definition on Wikipedia) of what the website is about and what it has to offer (be it content, services or products).

That’s where Information Architecture comes in. Information Architecture is basically two things: labeling and grouping information.

Labeling
Labeling seems straight-forward at first, but is a quite political issue. Good labeling should be clear and intuitive, meaning that when the user reads the name of a section, he or she should be able to guess what kind of content is included in it. The usual conflict when it comes to labeling is with the marketing department. In terms of branding and “sounding cool” many marketers come up with fancy names for sections they want on the website. Problem is,… these names require more effort on the user’s side to learn and thus affect usability. Not that they are always bad. If a “label” is consistently used throughout an organization regardless of the channel (online or offline), then it could work. As usual, the answer to that problem is: it depends on the context of use (like most usability problems).

An example with unclear naming… good or bad?!

Grouping
Grouping is the second aspect of information architecture. Grouping relates to how the content is put together to form sections, sub-sections, etc. Grouping is really key in supporting users in building their mental model of the website. A good grouping is hierarchical by nature and this hierarchy should be reflected in the navigation of the website. It is usually good to have a primary grouping where each piece of content resides in a single group and then if needed build multiple ways to navigate that information from different angles. Below screenshot shows this. On the International Herald Tribune, content is organized by topics first, but then it is also possible to browse according to location as well.

But that’s where the problems start (and where the actual blog post I meant to write start as well). The way the grouping on IHT is displayed really does not do a good job at helping users build a clear mental model. The design of the navigation creates the impression that regions (americas, europe,…) are subsections of the main iht.com section (that appears selected). That could work, but let’s look at what happens when we decide to look at business articles…

As the user is interacting with the navigation area, this same area should provide a feedback of the action that took place. Unfortunately at this stage, nothing happened. The homepage (iht.com) still looks selected, what looked like sub-sections (americas, europe,…) did not change. The mental model that users had build based the homepage does not hold anymore. Of course, the content below changed, and the page has a title “Business with Reuters”, but the job is not done. Users are also not given the opportunity to drill down more into sub-sections under business (possible at the bottom of the page), which I would say is a pretty important features.

Anyway. My post is pretty long already. To sum up: A navigation should support users in building a mental model of the website. That mental model should be reinforced as they browse to different pages. Easier said than done…