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Windows and Doors - navigation diagram 2

There is still a default prioritising of the left hand side of the screen but increasingly it is becoming evident that circular distribution themes are being used to provide links to areas that are equal in weight (ABC children's page/Warner Bros) Further meaning is added if the links indicate what it is that is likely to be encountered at the other end of the link. In a building, for instance, a door indicates a different kind of exit to a window. Outside doors are different to internal doors. The structural chart clearly indicates what will be the most obvious content of a link, this needs to be conveyed to the user with a link name or image that indicates the flavour of that which is to come.

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Figure 2. Link names that indicate what is at the other end.

In Figure 2 the third (3) indicates clustering and segmentation of the page into category areas - the left is about the shop and what it sells, core business. The right hand is event connected but not the core business of the site. Below is the information about the enterprise. Additionally the link names seek to warm the web visitor up to what is at the other end of the link. They actively invite following. Amaze Limited [HREF3] are working to devise new ways of site navigation. They talk about discovery engines not search engines and transparent user interfaces. They are working on the "creation of intuitive navigation systems for a range of products, from interactive TV handsets to CD-ROMs of the human immune system". Their navihedron is being used in the construction of the Western Australian transport website. [HREF4]. After much workshopping with customers, the designer Paul Houghton arrived at 12 themes that were relevant to their customer base rather than the institution's organisational structure. "The identification of these themes is one part of the picture, these are then arranged around an icosahedron. The 12 points access 96 possible pages rather than going through 2 or 3 layers of hierarchy - as a result no subject is more than three steps away."(Bell,1998).

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