Modern Sitemap Examples

In my workshops on navigation design, I relate sitemaps to eating eggs: first they were bad for, then they were good for you, then bad, and then good in small doses. So what’s the deal: are sitemaps as a navigation mechanism good or bad?

Back in the day, we used to include a sitemap in a website’s IA almost by default. Then they got a really bad rap: “If your navigation works well, you don’t need a sitemap,” people would say. So they went out of style. Besides, creating a sitemap is difficult, and as soon as it’s done, it needs updating due to a change in the page structure or page name. And generating one dynamically is more effort than it’s worth.

But then sitemaps became good for SEO, so people have started using them again. Ebay has one; so does Apple.

One trend I’ve pointed out is the partial sitemap at the bottom of each page, in the footer area. And here’s a recent collection of many of them on Web Designer Wall. (The example sites I’ve used in the past all seem to have changed page layouts, so I appreciate this collection to draw on as a resource).

Of course, this is not new. Peter van Dijck recommended putting a sitemap on every page of your site back in 2000. (See John Rhodes summary on Web Word).

So sitemaps aren’t quite dead yet. They are just taking a different form and function.

Nielsen on Mega Menus (aka Ribbon Navigation)

Jakob Nielsen has a recent post on what he calls “Mega Drop-Down Menus.” I previously blogged on this trend as well, originally calling them “sitemap menus” and then “ribbon navigation.” Nielson also draws a parallel to MS Word’s “ribbon” navigation in his post, so I guess I can’t be wrong. :-) A case of great minds thinking alike?

Overall, Neilsen likes such menus. But he focuses on the interaction with them in his article. The point I make in my navigation design workshops, however, is that ribbon menus draw together navigation options from across a site’s hierarchy. They not only provide a nice, speedy interaction, they also change the function of the menu. Dynamic menus aren’t just for structural, local navigation any more: you can use them to draw together options and tasks that thematically belong together. So they become associative menus as well. I’ve even seen ads in ribbon menus.

I don’t like Nielsen’s terms for them: many people refer to regular ol’ HTML selection menus as “drop-down”. I’m not thrilled with calling them “ribbon navigation” either, so if you have a good suggestion let me know.

Workshops in Hamburg – Lou Rosenfeld & James Kalbach

Lou Rosenfeld and I will be giving a series of workshops in Hamburg, Germany from May 18-20–right after the German IA Konferenz. Find out more and register at UX Workshops.

Here’s a brief overview of the workshops

• May 18, 2009 – Enterprise Information Architecture – Louis Rosenfeld
  Developing a unified web site or intranet for a large, decentralized organization is the Holy Grail for many of today’s Internet professionals. This day-long seminar is for managers and web professionals who desperately want to tie together content in a rational, user-centered way, regardless of content ownership issues, cultural hurdles, and turf battles.This advanced information architecture seminar combines lecture, demonstration and exercises, discussion, and handouts to address a topic that bewilders every large organization: designing unified information architectures for large enterprises.
• May 19, 2009 – Commercial Ethnography – James Kalbach
  Ethnographic research methods have many potential advantages for businesses, including helping to increase insight into customer behaviour, make the real world visible the entire organisation and identify opportunities for innovation. In this course, you will learn about practical skills needed to conduct an ethnographic study from beginning to end. The course outline walks through each phase step-by-step.
• May 20, 2009 – Personas and Mental Models – James Kalbach
  Communicating user research effectively is critical for user-centred design. This full-day course has two parts that show how to bring your research to life:
  Part 1: Personas - Personas have become a mainstream design tool. There’s even a growing body of literature on the subject, including two full-length books. But there are also misconceptions and misuses of personas in the field.
  Part 2: Mental Models - The term “mental models” means different things to different people. In this workshop, we use the term broadly to refer to any technique used to understand the behavioural, cognitive, and emotional states of users.

The early bird price runs until April 2. There’s limited place for each of the workshops.

Register at www.uxworkshops.com.

Karen Lindemann from Netflow is the sponsor and producer of the events.

Ethnography and Strategy – HBR.org Article

Thanks, Jan (aka The Hot Strudel), for pointing out the recent HBR.org artcle on ethnography: “Ethnographic Research: A Key to Strategy” by Ken Anderson. He writes:

Corporate ethnography isn’t just for innovation anymore. It’s central to gaining a full understanding of your customers and the business itself.

[...]

Unlike traditional market researchers, who ask specific, highly practical questions, anthropological researchers visit consumers in their homes or offices to observe and listen in a nondirected way. Our goal is to see people’s behavior on their terms, not ours. While this observational method may appear inefficient, it enlightens us about the context in which customers would use a new product and the meaning that product might hold in their lives.

[...]

But people often can’t articulate what they’re looking for in products or services. By understanding how people live, researchers discover otherwise elusive trends that inform the company’s future strategies.

This is a short article centered around ethnography at Intel. According to the author, Intel has perhaps one of the largest corporate ethnography staff in the world. Good for Intel.

This is just another example of a paradigm shift we’re seeing in design and user experience in general: it’s not just about the product or interface anymore. What this means for designers and researchers is that they are now targeting a different set of stakeholders. Instead of talking to product managers and marketing people about the desing of a website, application, or product, we’re now at the table with cor0porate strategists and executives.

It’s about time.