Which is a better Navigation Structure

Categories make sense for the primary organizing model, but ideally
you'd let people browse both ways. Maybe have categories as the main
navigational schema but give folks access to an A-Z list as well.

Note that if you do have an A-Z list, a well maintained thesaurus is
essential. (So in Mark's example, under Garbage Pail, you'd have a
"see also" link that points to Dust Bins. You'd also have broader
terms and narrower terms and all that other thesaurusy goodness.)

Leah

On Jun 15, 2008, at 1:57 AM, Mark Canlas wrote:

> I would say categories, mainly because 1) that's how other places do
> it 2)
> items may have different names and thus should be under multiple
> letters. Is
> it Tape or Adhesive? Is it Trash, Garbage pale, or Dust bin?
>
> Categories are less difficult to get wrong.
>
> On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 3:41 AM, Rony Philip <philiprony at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> Here is a clarification:
>>
>> A portal is being developed for office supplies. It sells many
>> varities of
>> products (computers, paper clips, dust bins, charis/ tables, etc).
>>
>> Which navigational approach is most suited?
>>
>> 1. Alphabetical Navigation: A primary navigation that simply
>> displays all
>> the alphabets. When user hovers the mouse on any alphabet, all the
>> items
>> related to that particular alphabet is displayed.
>>
>> 2. Categorized Navigation: Group items under different categories
>> (tab
>> navigation) like - Electronics, Furniture, Technology, Supplies, etc.
>>
>> Any better approach?!
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Rony
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On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 3:41 AM, Rony Philip <philiprony at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> Which navigational approach is most suited?
>
> 1. Alphabetical Navigation: A primary navigation that simply
> displays all
> the alphabets. When user hovers the mouse on any alphabet, all the
> items
> related to that particular alphabet is displayed.
>
> 2. Categorized Navigation: Group items under different categories (tab
> navigation) like - Electronics, Furniture, Technology, Supplies, etc.

First, I just thought I'd take advantage of this opportunity to remind
us of Jared's favorite (and mine) example of a categorized catalog
navigation:
http://www.mcmaster.com/

Second, I find it hard to imagine any practical utility whatsoever for
an alphabetically-organized navigation for a product catalog, except
perhaps if the list of stuff is entirely visible in one screen so the
user can find their selection (which seems unlikely, unless your
inventory is pretty small).

Any item I can think of in the office-supply world seems likely to
have a dozen different names and may appear under a dozen different
letters of the alphabet depending on the idiosyncrasies of the company
(more likely several companies) responsible for classifying and naming
the products (Ink, Printer Ink, Laser Printer Ink, Color Ink,
Cartridges, Replacement Ink, Refills, Accessories for Printers, etc.).
Leah's thesaurus suggestion is good, but you may end up laboring over
that thesaurus for a great many moons, and may need to update it
frequently.

IMHO, alphabetization only works if the subject matter has little to
no alternate possible naming. If every item in your index has one,
two, three or more alternate names, your labor increases by that same
factor, probably more.

Cheers
-Cf

Christopher Fahey
____________________________
Behavior
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
me: http://www.graphpaper.com

On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 8:41 AM, Rony Philip <philiprony at gmail.com> wrote:
> 1. Alphabetical Navigation

"Alphabetical order is obsolete"

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/03/alphabetical-or.html

--

Regards,
Danny Hope
http://hobointernet.com
+44 (0)845 230 3760

Poor little alphabet. Gets no respect.

Ok, so maybe a full blown thesaurus is overkill for an office supply
site. But you can't convince me that alphabetical order is
obsolete. Seth makes some interesting suggestions for newer ways
that we can organize information, but I don't think it has to be
either/or. There will always be situations where an alphabetical list
simply makes sense, and even when you have non-standard organization
schemes, odds are good you're using some form of alphabetization
within them.

The truth is, I don't actually care this much about the alphabet. I
swear.

But I think sometimes we're overeager to abandon established,
effective methods in favor of something that seems new, simply because
the technology makes it possible. I like Will's point about hybrid
solutions -- including top down taxonomies and bottom up facets, and,
yes, even a little good old fashioned alphabetization.

Leah

On Jun 16, 2008, at 9:49 AM, Danny Hope wrote:

> "Alphabetical order is obsolete"
>
> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/03/alphabetical-or.html

After spending some time with "Everything is Miscellaneous"
organization alphaebetically is starting to look so arbitrary to me
as to be verging on absurd. But I guess some merging of the two would
be best in this case.

Tabs for lumping together categories and some finer sorting
alphabetically within the larger categories. Guess there's no
escaping the alphabet, ultimately. But I'd hate to begin my shopping
with the old A-Z.

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Posted from the new ixda.org
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On Jun 17, 2008, at 3:25 PM, Diana Wynne wrote:

> I rely on alphabetical order at the bookstore and the library. Makes
> me crazy trying to find non-fiction titles when I don't understand
> the classification system (oh, this is California history, not
> travel).

Oh, really? I've never seen an alphabetical bookstore or library. Most
libraries use some sort of cataloguing system, ala Dewey Decimal
System or Library of Congress. In some sections, such as fiction, it's
then alphabetical by author, but as I stated before, that works
because there is only one name.

Bookstores divide their content by sections. Again, some sections are
alphabetical by author, but some are by other means. For example, the
cooking section is often subdivided by cuisines, diets, or styles.
Biographies are divided by the subject, then by the author.

It would be neat to see a completely alphabetical library or
bookstore. It would likely be unusable, by both the customer and the
folks required to keep it alphabetical.

> Ditto for record stores, when I still bought music in physical form.

Again, unless you shopped in a record that didn't have much a
selection, I doubt this was true. Most stores were organized by genre
(R&B, Pop, Classical). Within genre's, they were sometimes
alphabetical by artist, though some sections, like show tunes, would
be organized by other content.

However, within a given artist, it's unlikely the individual products
were organized alphabetically. Most likely, it was random order,
though some of the larger collections would order by date of release.

> But being able to search by name obviates much of the need for this.

That's one of the great ironies of all of this. In those cases where
alphabetization works, search also works really well. When
alphabetization doesn't work so well, search accuracy also starts to
decay.

So, I still contend that alphabetization, for the most part (but not
always), is akin to random order.

:)

Jared

Jared M. Spool
User Interface Engineering
510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845
e: jspool at uie.com p: +1 978 327 5561
http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks

On Jun 17, 2008, at 7:08 PM, Jeff Howard wrote:

> One of the best reasons I know of to use an alphabetical organization
> is where egos are concerned--specifically to avoid the appearance of
> priority when listing names. In that case it's akin to random; the
> names have to be in _some_ order and it helps to cast the blame on
> the "natural order" of the alphabet.

If your primary goal for design is to ensure you can cleanly assign
blame to an artifact, then I guess alphabetization is good. However,
the original context of this thread was for the organization of office
supplies. Do people need to ensure that all office supplies are
treated equally?

Surely, if you want to ensure users get what they need, you'll
approach things from their perspective, not from the perspective of
whose egos you need to protect. It's clear, watching users, that they
are less concerned about equality and fairness in design than by ease
of accessing their information.

Company employee phone directory: Alphabetize. (Except that important
departments or individuals should probably also be at the top in a
"best bets" section.)
Company HR Department services: Put in order of most likely needed by
the employee. Alphabetization here, while fair, would not help the
user in any way.

> Incidently, literal randomness is a pretty good organization scheme
> in some contexts; notably survey questions where the order of answers
> tends to influence selection.

No argument there. I never said randomness is bad. I only said that
alphabetization, to users, appears random. If randomness is the effect
you are going for, alphabetization is a good way to do it.

> But in most cases I'd say alphabetical is preferable to random (if
> nothing else exists) because people want things to make sense and
> they'll try to read meaning into the order no matter what you do.
> It's more humane to give them something obvious like alphabetical
> order to hang their hat on.

I'm betting that if you had watched as many users approach as many
different alphabetized lists as I have in my career, you'd probably
come to a different conclusion.

In my experience, when users come to a list that alphabetized that
isn't a lists of people's names, state's names, or models of cars,
they try to find the item they are looking for by starting at the top
and working down. As soon as they bump into an item they think is less
significant than their target, they pause and wonder how they might've
missed the item. This is particularly true if they find something that
they think of as similar significance that should be a "neighbor" of
the target item.

They don't keep looking because they think it couldn't be later on (or
they make a comment about how they don't want to have to scan the
entire list just to find their one item). The problem with
alphabetization is that it eliminates grouping of neighbors and
randomizes the significance. Users aren't interested in searching.
They are interested in finding.

Order is really important. You need to really understand how user's
approach it. Most of the time, alphabetization diminishes the
experience instead of enhancing it, from the users' perspective.

Jared

Interestingly, I was on the OfficeMax site this morning looking for a
notepad that is a mixed layout: project management with task grid on
one side and a grid layout on the other. As an IA who is often
running project meetings, you can imagine the thrill of having found
such a tool.

I scanned the home page and chose Paper Finder, tho' I was not
confident I was headed in the right direction- I wasn't. I looked at
the A-Z - where to start?

I went to search and tried "notepad" which turned up a lot of
post-its (ah, is there anything more perfect?!). Next I tried
"project pad" in the search and there I found my much sought after
Tops Docket Gold Planning Pads, White, 8-1/2" x 11", Wide Margin
with Task List. Note that "project" does not appear on the page.

I like the mcmaster example. If I saw notepad in there I would feel
pretty darn confident.

However, your search should address the various synonyms your
audience is likely to use.. As much as I love to analyze someone
else's IA, I really needed to find it, order it and get on to my own
projects.

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