Network Navigation

I’ll paint a scene for you – you represent an organisation that is either:

Type A -  multiple facilities i.e. buildings, infrastructure, assets, location. Diversified stakeholders that cover the spread across corporate, general public, specific interest groups, educated and newly aware of your offering.

Type B – is the custodian of a collective group of self sustaining brands, identities and personas i.e. the business is the umbrella marketing and operational owner of a family of best of breed products.

These represent what my esteemed colleague Simon Julian terms ‘Network Navigation’ focussed sites. Yes, you can be part of both groups whereby representation of multiple channels and being all things to all people, is a mandatory requirement. Because of the sheer volume of enquiry that they undergo both Types have site visitors that have an interest in visiting the website with the goal of learning and want an outcome to be firmly fixed into:

Type A: Where the locations are, How to get there and When to get there and what will be there when they arrive.

Type B: What product, what other products, where to buy and product specifications themselves

These are the logical outcomes of such sites. It’s what I term a somewhat ‘brochureware’ type of existence. Point & Shoot. Aim & Fire.

However, if you pause for a moment, consideration needs to be given to a raft of other areas which can be communicated – staffing & recruitment, company news, event information, shareholder enquiry etc. Existing customers and clients looking to revisit and search for updates. To extend this, these stakeholders could come to the website for specifications, support documentation and if you want to embrace Web 2.0 these very same visitors are looking for validation and confirmation via other user viewpoints – blogs, testimonials, experience driven endorsement.

Underlying all this is the driving need to clearly represent the ‘Network’ or family of products, facilities and services that the whole business represents. I’ve recently been involved in some work in network navigation website strategy and a cursory look around has yielded the following:

Epworth Health http://www.epworth.org.au – Type A

This site is really well setup from an information layout point of view, and considering it is a hospital, the branding is not too bad. I particularly like the visual treatment in the primary navigation offered around the overarching Epworth organisation umbrella vs the different facilities locations. 2nd level primary in the upper 3rd of the page is good and drills down to content with quality layout landing pages. Colour treatment could be better, but really clutching at straws here. 9/10

Museums Victoria http://museumvictoria.com.au – Type A

Again, a visually strong site, with expected branding which is par for the course for this sort of institution. Lack of a breadcrumb is a killer. Structure of events and the information design around event treatment falls away badly as the information across pages is inconsistant. On the upside, navigationally, you are always aware where you are on the site and it is easy to get around via the persistant navigation.  Annoying how it is optimised to barely skip through the screen fold – this minimal information presentation can lead to an excess of clicking around to get information being split across so many screens. 7/10

Wilson Sporting Goods http://www.wilson.com – Type B

Strongly branded, taking the product approach harnessing the strength of the parent brand and than shelving off to the 14 different sporting endeavours as required. Brilliantly executed aside from the Employment Opportunities area which is laughable in its simplicity and glaring lack of branding compared to the rest of the network. Also the dealer search arriving via the evil popup window warrants a -1 point. 8/10

Coca Cola Amatil http://www.ccamatil.com.au – Type B

Representative of Coca Cola, Goulburn Valley & Powerade, this is an average representation of how an umbrella brand can pale next to the strength of its subsidiary brands. Drilling down to find the brands themselves is a chore and you are left sitting there not even being able to decipher them, due to the miniscule size of the images, the errors on the page and the generally poor information design. Layout for shareholder information is a challenge too. Corporate Image representation is poor.  4/10

Mars http://www.mars.com – Type B

Aside from this site being devilishly slow, a strong representation of the brands from the umbrella perspective with succinct summaries and leads to the individually localised and branded websites. The site presents both flaws and strengths. There has been some strong effort at offering marketing led insight with a high level of visual interactivity, however it is let down by the somewhat skimpy treatment of key areas of information which umbrella company focussed visitors would be looking for. 8/10

Volkswagen AG http://www.volkswagenag.com – Type A & Type B

Austere. Minimalist. German. Not many people are aware that Volkswagen AG own Audi, Volkwagen Automotive & Commercial, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Seat, Bentley, Skoda & Scania. Easy to move around, the navigation is particularly easy to use and follow, mitigating the need for a breadcrumb. It could be argued that implicit notification of additional layers of navigation would be useful, but really just a minor point. 7/10

Facebook & the Implications of Privacy

A number of articles published in today’s ‘The Age’ online have equally disturbed and intrigued me on a number of levels.

The first was the identification of the arsonist in the Victorian Bush Fires in the article ‘Vigilantes publish alleged arsonist’s image online‘ , and the subsequent Flash speed with which their identify has been disclosed on Facebook, now numbering some 150+ million active users.  Some of the commentary as reported in the above article, is disturbing in its explicit anger and intent, all the more so, because what was once a ‘closed garden‘ environment has now become public by virtue of the introduction of ‘Pages’, ‘Groups’ & ‘Causes’. This speaks volumes about the ‘power of the people’ and the strength such social networks have on influencing real life from its virtual footprint. I logged in this evening and found no less than 10 groups devoted to this topic.

The second aspect that caught my attention is the comments of the presiding judge who quashed suppression of the alleged person’s identify in ‘Churchill arson accused fails to face court‘

“Any prison system has its jungle drums…how is the suppression going to protect the anonymity,” Magistrate Klestadt said. He said murderers and pedophiles appeared in court every day and their names were not suppressed.

The above comment shows the judges limited understanding and social context with which Facebook’s influence extends too. Putting aside the guilt or innocence of the alleged for a moment, and assessing in an entirely dispassionate light, the inherant problem with this statement by the judge is that, even with television and radio coverage, such types within our society are not likely to face the sheer volume of recrimination and potential vigilante action that is brewing on Facebook’s Wall’s, News Feeds’ and Status Updates. What was once the realm of small town gossip, maybe a phone call, at worst, televised coverage has now breached the divide of a worldwide, instantaneous communication network where the information source is vetted by any reasonable persons measure – the information source is one you trust – your network of friends. By its very nature of being a ‘closed garden’ network, Facebook itself is inadvertently endorsing the publication of such activities. Where communications over television, radio or in print would fade as the natural path of time charts its course, the Facebook group and subsequent alerting of your friends and acquaintances of your wall will potentially last for weeks, if not months.

The 3rd area which sounded alarm bells was the following as quoted in ‘Churchill arson accused fails to face court‘

Dr Matthew Rimmer, senior lecturer in law at the Australian National University, said Facebook is in much the same position as any other media organisation. “Much like a newspaper, Facebook needs to be careful what it publishes because it’s not just the author who is liable. Sometimes the publisher is liable ,” he said.

Here is a learned academic passing comment that Facebook is a media organisation like a newspaper. This troubles me greatly in that Facebook does little to police nor vet the activities of its users from a day to day personal perspective. Newspapers on the other hand vet everything that goes to print, and operate in much this similar fashion when moderating their own blogs and article comment feeds. Facebook is different as the ‘closed garden’ premise is that you only invite your friends to be a part of your network, and as a consequence, you are subsequently responsible for your actions and activities on your wall. I liken Facebook to be like a Hotel – you hire the room, once you have the keys, what you do with the room for the period of your stay is up to you, so long as you abide by the basic ground rules of don’t trash the place, pay for the mini bar and be civil to other guests whilst enjoying your stay. The very appeal of such networks is you can control who sees what, you get presented information that your friends have already vetted and endorsed and your privacy is maintained.

Overall, Facebook’s principle of offering a ‘closed garden’ is widely acclaimed and endorsed. Their creation of ‘Beacon‘ to data mine and ad serve your preferences, offering targeted advertising by way of user preference profiles and in recent years Facebook ‘Pages’, ‘Groups’ and ‘Causes’ all started life as different ways for the business to make money. However what is going to challenge their supremacy and high patronised usage is Privacy. Privacy and the implications of Facebook’s responsibilities as a publisher are only going to become more and more challenging as time goes on, as they will potentially be held responsible for the activities of its vast sea of users, generating millions of words, actions and images each day.

Information Architecture

I had reason recently to discuss the concept of Information Architecture with a client. In its broad context, as it applies to web, It was readily apparent that this client’s world view, the definition that they pursued was limited to the site navigation and page layout in context of a classic sitemap. Whilst I can understand that most IA’s are referred back to a site map diagram  – a trap of the industry -  it has occured to me that the definition as interpreted by my esteemed work colleagues who rank developers, project managers, digital strategists and designers (conceptual) is in an entirely different area of focus and emphasis. However, we’re often left with clients that need to understand just what in the world we are talking about. So where is the disconnect?

As is always the case when in doubt, I fall back on the Trusted Wikipedia definition of Information Architecture as a starting point:

“Information architecture (IA) is the art of expressing a model or concept of information used in activities that require explicit details of complex systems. Among these activities are library systems, Content Management Systems, web development, user interactions, database development, programming, technical writing, enterprise architecture, and critical system software design. Information architecture has somewhat different meanings in these different branches of IS or IT architecture. Most definitions have common qualities: a structural design of shared environments, methods of organizing and labeling websites, intranets, and online communities, and ways of bringing the principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.”

Quite a formal definition that needs bearing in mind if we are to dessiminate the underlying definition in context of the Web world.

When building a website lots of people, including both clients and practitioners make the mistake thinking that it’s easy. It’s not. A well built website considers factors that are the summation of different areas of endeavour for the business or organisation in question. Everyone has a vested interest to ensure that this pesky website thing works – the sales force, corporate comms, IT & IS, HR, executive, products group etc. Ultimately, they are there to support the activities in communicating to the site’s end users, both actual and intended and the intended function of the site in turn supports the business goals being focussed upon.

What is overlooked on a regular basis by both clients and so called ‘expert’ practitioners is the need for us to have an understanding of those other audiences on the business side who have a vested interest as well as the same understanding as it relates to the user side. The often subscribed to view is that managing or eliciting such involvement from other stakeholders internally can uneccesarily stymie the progress of the project. And in contrast, assessing the audience both intended and actual is often just ‘too big a task’ by most peoples standards. Involvement in such activity extends to the IA and how it impacts on the User Experience (UX).  IA by our own industries definition is not just the site structure from a page relationship point of view, however the problem is that we often don’t communicate this terribly well to our clients, who are more focussed on the commercial outcome of  what the end result will be. And rightly so, as they are the ones ‘paying’ us to deliver results. Succinctly, IA involves not only the navigation and the hierarchical arrangement of the pages, but also encompasses the below aspects.

1. Who is the audience? Are they going to be myopically challenged (as mentioned below) or have the attention span of a butterfly
2. Content Layout – Priority and scaling of content in relation to context and intended purpose. The concept of a great tract of text 750 words long doesn’t faze most people – until I point out ‘Would you read that?’ Both clients and practitioners are guilty of not thinking in this area nor offering advice and alternatives. How to solve this? Heading 1, followed by heading 2 byline, followed by 30 word summary, followed by introduction paragraph, use of tabulated data to present data (not to break up data), dot points and cross referencing. If you can’t deal with all that in 250 – 300 words, breakout the massive slab into a PDF Whitepaper, with that as a specific topic.
3. Images – Either overused (way to large), underused (way to small) or cliched, out of context. How many product sites have I gone too where the images are tiny? Too many.
4. Use a breadcrumb! Highly underated. This trail and visual cue of where you are in the site gives relevence to the hierachical order of information.
5. Font Size – Again highly underated. How many sites have I found where the audience is 40+ male white collar workers…. who are probably wearing glasses. Have at the least a font size button which can scale the site up and down.
6. Information Hierarchy – specifications, instructional guides, price lists, high level description, sizing etc
7. Print version – like it or not, people still print pages. It’s gotta fit on the A4/Foolscap sheet and is useless if it gets cropped. Savvy website owners will also setup their print variants to have pre-formatted pages with company logo, contact information, the page location within the site, print date and possible cross linked information.

Good User Experience yields ease of access and allows people to fall into the natural rhythm of finding the information they are looking for and if it is done correctly, it is self feeding in that it yields data back giving you insights into your web audience. The key things is that good IA starts at the design stage and should be encompassed in the Wireframes and the Site layout. Excellent IA is the result of good consultant activity at the Pre-Sales / Client Definition / Discovery stage of the project and should take into account a site visit whereby you can ‘soak up’ the atmosphere of the client in question.

All the above needs to be determined before a good IA can be setup and they all impact on the overall User Experience of how site visitors will interact with your site. The current line of thought extends to the notion that interactivity with your site is a reflection of how a client interacts with your brand. Brand as a touch point is every single interactivity they have with your organisation – products, service, phone call centre, printed material, customer interaction, your staff, your sales force, the words being portayed in popular media…. and your website.