A Paradox of Navigation Metaphors for the Web

Tom Johnson — Mon, 02 May 2011 14:38:38 +0000

In Ambient Findability, Peter Morville has an interesting observation about visual maps. He notes that we use a lot of physical wayfinding metaphors for the web — we go to a page, we follow a path, we search for objects, we become lost, we use breadcrumbs to orient ourselves, we surf around, we use sitemaps, we design with blueprints, we practice information architecture, we navigate around, etc. These are all metaphors for using the web. All of these terms are borrowed the space of the physical world.

But here’s the paradox. Although we use physical metaphors to describe how we “navigate” the web, most sites that use physical metaphors as navigation fail. Morville writes,

… Attempts to map the Web using information visualization techniques mostly fail. Over the past decate, there have been a number of well-financed efforts to solve search and navigation problems with interactive maps. These companies and their products … enjoy tons of media coverage because their pretty pictures and futuristic visions attract attention. They are held up as a revolutionary step forward in human-computer interaction. They are the Next Big Thing. And then they disappear. (p.38, Ambient Findability)

Recently Smashing Magazine featured a post on creative navigation techniques. Among them is a perfect example of what Morville talks about. Check out Tennessee Trails and Byways. On the site, you find information by clicking buildings on the map.

If we use physical metaphors to surf the web, why don't navigation menus that rely on map-like navigation work?

The Smashing Magazine authors explain:

Discover Tennessee Trails & Byways incorporate a “trail viewer” navigation for their users. The designers of the site use the same idea of horizontal scrolling navigation with a Parallax animation, but they decided to explain to users first how to use the navigation on the site. Usually, this is not a sign for an effective navigation, but it works quite well in this example, especially because the overall design appears to be very novel, playful and experimental to users anyway. In the case of uncommon or particularly innovative design techniques, this kind of instruction might be necessary until users understand the paradigm of the new navigation pattern.

The site is novel and fun to play with, but the fun soon wears off and becomes somewhat tedious as a means of finding information. This demonstrates the paradox with navigation metaphors: we use metaphors from the physical world as we describe our actions on the web, but those metaphors fail if you actually use them to build the navigation.

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Sailboats and Cruise Ships, or, How My Work Podcast Was Dwarfed by a Mega Work Podcast

Tom Johnson — Thu, 21 May 2009 04:16:30 +0000

A couple of months ago, I wanted to start a podcast at my work, and so I interviewed someone who has been in our IT department for 28 years about the evolution of the department over the years.

The podcast took about a month to get approved, and the week before it was posted, as I was tracking down the person who controlled our iTunes feed and Feedburner, I found that another department, Digital Media, was in the process of launching a full-scale dedicated radio station with 24/7 programming and more than a dozen new shows, with new episodes published weekly, also downloadable as podcasts. Radio.lds.org allows you to listen to a live stream of programming online or, if you have an HD Radio in certain cities, you can listen in your car. All the shows also have feeds in iTunes, so they double as podcasts on your iPod.

The podcasts at radio.lds.org target a Mormon audience, but you may find the Everything Creative show interesting. Some of the other podcasts include informal conversations with leaders, stories related at conferences, a history of hymns, scripture stories, and other topics. The focus on conversations and stories is right on target.

Seeing this full-scale podcasting effort (I hope they haven’t underestimated the work necessary to keep this going), made me rethink my work podcast. There’s no longer a need, because it is being fully filled elsewhere, through another department.

A few years ago, as I was transitioning from a startup to a large company and feeling a little frustrated by the bureaucracy of approval required for nearly everything, an older colleague explained this metaphor. She told me small companies are like sailboats, nimble, quick and able to turn sharply, without much notice. Large companies, on the other hand, are like cruise ships. Massive and heavy — it takes them half a mile just to turn around. But while slow, they can also do incredibly powerful things.

I apply this metaphor to the podcasts. My little work podcast, which strangely seems the product of an IT startup, even though it is part of the same organization, is buried in the shadows of Radio.LDS.org’s gigantic all-consuming 24/7 radio station/media outlet/podcast deluge.

While on the topic of podcasts, the other day Gordon McLean of One Man Writes asked listeners what their favorite podcasts are. Here’s what I listen to regularly on my iPod right now: IT Author, WordPress weekly, Boagworld, The WordPress Podcast, This American Life, InDesign Secrets, Brain Sparks, NPR Technology Podcast, This Week in Tech, and Grammar Girl.

My favorite podcast of the week is the IT Author interview of Geoffrey Pullum, an English professor who debunks many assertions in Strunk and White’s Elements of Style and Fowler’s Modern English Usage. I learned some interesting things about grammar from the interview. First, the that versus which rule, using “that” for restrictive clauses and “which” for non-restrictive clauses, appears to be an invention by Fowler in the early part of the twentieth century.

And Strunk and White’s enforcement of singular verbs with certain pronouns (for example, “None of us has an umbrella” rather than “None of us have an umbrella”) also seems to be a rule invention, not in keeping with the accepted grammar of his day.

I consider myself fortunate to live in a time when so much information is available and consumable for free.

I'd Rather Be Writing » metaphors

A Paradox of Navigation Metaphors for the Web

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Sailboats and Cruise Ships, or, How My Work Podcast Was Dwarfed by a Mega Work Podcast

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