Information Architecture Archive

One thing that has crossed and stuck on my mind lately, is how information is presented on topic maps based web portals.

Topic Maps based portals typically, or should I say obviously, use a subject centric approach for presenting information: every page presents information about a subject (represented by a topic in the topic map).

And most topic maps based portals lay out the information about those subject in much the same way:

• Page name = topic name.
• Page body = occurrences; e.g. description or article text.
• Right column = associations.

(In addition to this, the left column will most likely consist the standard global navigation menu).

Let’s take a look at a few examples:

Screen shot of government.no.

Screen shot of bergen.kommune.no.

Screen shot of www.forskning.no.

Now, what’s interesting is that one of the most interesting parts of the topic map (as far as I consider), the part that enables associative navigation and makes a difference compared to other technologies; the associations, are placed in the right column — a common spot for banner ads and less-important/interesting information that users have learned to overlook.

This makes me wonder: has anyone ever done user testing on topic maps based portals that might reveal how many users use the associative feature of topic maps - excluding the use of menus and the like?

How many users figure that the right column holds interesting information about related subjects and actually click these links?

I doubt topic maps based portals are wide spread enough for users to know that the associations are of interest — and in any way, which user knows - or cares - what goes on behind the scenes? And does it even matter, as long as the site is usable (in general)?

I am pretty sure it is important (as always) to use effective visual cues in order to direct the user’s attention towards the associations. Some of the examples above do better at presenting the associations visually — forskning.no almost appears to be hiding them, while bergen.kommune.no’s approach doesn’t seem too bad — for user’s to spot them while scanning the page for useful information. Still, it makes me wonder …

Say, where did they put that “Home” (”Hjem”) button (the image without alt text)?

(www.sandnes-kulturhus.no)

In all fairness, it’s a public site by a cultural institution — which definitively has a limited web budget.
Still, it makes me wonder why they decided to put it at the bottom of the main menu.

As predicted in my initial posting, I am not very good at hosting a blog … long time no see.

Anyways: on the project I’m currently working on, I’ve had an interesting discussion with the interaction designer. The interaction designer had implemented the web application’s graphics design, based on our ID drafts, in HTML and CSS … which I was to transfer to JSP.

He had, however, marked up some headings which logically speaking were H2s, as H3s, and the corresponding H3s as H2s. This lead to sub headings taking the role of headings - and the other way around.

My first reaction was that this is not a good solution. (more…)

The 100% Easy-2-Read Standard is well worth a read.