The document discusses web navigation systems for information seeking, emphasizing user experience, information architecture, and an evaluation framework for major navigation systems. It outlines the importance of navigation tactics like querying and browsing, as well as usability guidelines to enhance user engagement. A dual-dimensional framework is presented to categorize web navigation designs based on the structure they provide and accessibility for users.

1. WEB NAVIGATION SYSTEMS FOR
INFORMATION SEEKING
Jack Zheng
An elective module for
IT 6753 Advanced Web Concepts and Applications
http://jackzheng.net/teaching/it6753/

2. Overview
 User experience, information architecture, and web navigation
 An evaluation framework to examine major web navigation
systems from a human information behavior and user interface
perspective.
 Advantages and weaknesses of major types of web navigation
system.

3. User Experience (UX) Conception
3
By Jesse James Garrett
• http://uxdesign.com/assets/Elements-of-User-Experience.pdf
• http://www.jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements.pdf

4. Information Architecture
 What is IA?
http://www.iainstitute.org/documents/learn/What_is_IA.pdf
 The structural design of shared information environments.
 The art and science of organizing and labeling web sites, intranets,
online communities and software to support usability and findability.
 An emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles
of design and architecture to the digital landscape.
 Components http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596527341.do
 Organization system
 Labeling system
 Navigation system
 Search system
 http://www.flickr.com/groups/explainia/
4

5. Practice of Information Architecture
5
How to Frame the Practice of IA v1.3, DSIA Research Initiative
http://www.methodbrain.com/posters/how-to-frame-the-practice-of-information-architecture.pdf

6. Web Information Seeking
 Information seeking is the process or activity of attempting to
obtain information in both human and technological contexts.
 Two generic tactics to seek information (Jul and Furnas 1997):
 Querying, or searching, is the process of “submitting a description of
the object (for instance, keywords) to a search engine which will
return relevant content or information.”
 Navigation, or browsing, is the action of
“moving oneself sequentially around an
environment, deciding at each step
where to go next based on the task and
the parts of the environment seen so far.”
 Users use these two tactics together to obtain information on the
web. The choice of searching and browsing depends on factors
like task type, user preference, and skill.
6
“Navigation is still a
fundamental way, and
even the “last mile”, of
getting useful information.”

7. Usability Guideline on Navigation
 To relieve memory overload and avoid getting lost, web usability
studies suggest several guidelines:
 1) visualizing the structure of information space;
 2) providing easy and flexible access to the navigational
information;
 3) providing context cues and navigation trace or history;
 4) behaving consistently;
 5) keeping the navigation system itself simple but meaningful.
 Based on the first two features, a 2 dimensional mapping
framework is developed to categorize and assess major
navigation systems.

8. A Framework to Characterize Web Navigation
Systems (with some typical examples)
(Zheng, 2015)

9. A Framework to Characterize Web Navigation
Systems
 The framework is arranged as a two-dimensional positioning map
with two axes representing the two features.
 The first dimension (horizontal axis) is how much structure information
a navigation system provides to a user when he/she is visiting a
particular site or page.
 On one end, the complete structure can be presented. A typical
example is a sitemap (Pilgrim, 2007), which is like a detailed table of
contents of a book.
 On the other end, only partial information is presented or no structure is
presented at all, such as quick links or browsing history.
 The second dimension (vertical axis) is how easy a user accesses or
views the navigation tool and information.
 On one end, it can stay in-sight all the time without extra computer
operations to interact with.
 On the other end, it can be visually separated and stay out-of-sight, and
needs additional actions to be presented. For example, a site map is
usually designed in a separate webpage and linked from the
homepage. So an HTML site map presents a complete structure but
offers completely separate access.

10. Common Navigation Designs
Navigation system Description and examples Structure Access
Drop down menu ui-patterns.com/patterns/
VerticalDropdownMenu
Provides complete hierarchical structure with mouse-over
or click actions; have limited number of top level links.
Not easy to access a deep level menu item; usually do
not show items at all levels at the same time; cannot
access peer level sections directly (must start from the
top level links every time); provides minimum context
cues. The consistency of interaction may be a problem;
can easily be used with a fixed position design to make
it stay in sight all the time.
Fly-out menu ui-patterns.com/patterns/
HorizontalDropdownMenu
Provides complete hierarchical structure with mouse-over
or click actions; may have more top level links.
Drop-up menu aplus.rs/adxmenu
/examples/hbt/
An alternative to the drop down menu but is position at
page bottom.
Multi-level navigation
bar or double tab
welie.com/patterns/
showPattern.php?
patternID=doubletab
Provides complete hierarchical structure with mouse-over
or click actions.
Provides access to peer level links; can display items at
all levels at the same time; easy to provide context cues;
may support more complex interactions.
Accordion menu ui-patterns.com/patterns/
AccordionMenu
Usually provides two levels of a hierarchical structure.
Tree menu treeview.net Provides the most complete hierarchical structure.
Breadcrumb ui-patterns.com
/patterns/Breadcrumbs
Provides a complete structural trace and context cues. Can be used together with drop-downs to view peer
items in any level; can be customized at a fixed position.
Mega menu or fat menu www.sitepoint.com
/mega-drop-down-menus/ (Buckler, 2009)
designinginterfaces.com
/patterns/fat-menus/
Like a dropdown menu, but it holds significantly more
content of different levels and types (often in multiple
columns), almost like a partial page.
Like a dropdown menu, it needs mouse actions to show
more structures; structures will hide when not used as it
takes a large portion of the screen.
Fat footer or sitemap
footer
ui-patterns.com
/patterns/FatFooter
designinginterfaces.com
/patterns/sitemap-footer/
Provides more structure information but commonly used
for secondary navigation.
To compensate the large area it occupies, it is usually
placed at the bottom of the page; has to scroll down to
the page bottom to see the menu.
HTML Sitemap
webpage
welie.com/patterns/
showPattern.php?
patternID=sitemap
Usually uses a complete page with sufficient viewing
area to display the complete structure.
On a separate sitemap web page; users need to
navigate back and forth between the sitemap page and
content pages; does not provide context cues.

11. References
 Zheng, G. (2015). Web Navigation Systems for Information
Seeking. In M. Khosrow-Pour (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Information
Science and Technology, Third Edition (pp. 7693-7701). Hershey,
PA: Information Science Reference.
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265685771_Web_Naviga
tion_Systems_for_Information_Seeking
 http://www.igi-global.com/chapter/web-navigation-systems-for-
information-seeking/112472
 Jul, S., & Furnas, G. W. (1997). Navigation in Electronic Worlds: A
CHI 97 Workshop Report. SIGCHI Bulletin, 29(4), 44–49.
 Morville, P., & Rosenfeld L. (2006). Information Architecture for the
World Wide Web. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media.

12. Selected Resources
 Kalbach, J. (2007). Designing Web Navigation: Optimizing the User Experience. Sebastopol, CA:
O'Reilly Media.
 Articles
 Miller, E. (2014). Five Rules of Effective Website Navigation Design. About.com Graphic Design. Retrieved May 2,
2014, from http://graphicdesign.about.com/od/effectivewebsites/a/web_navigation.htm
 Dunn, Z. (2009, September 14). Principles of Effective Web Navigation. Build Internet. Retrieved from
http://buildinternet.com/2009/09/principles-of-effective-web-navigation/
 Hixon, J. (2012). Progressive And Responsive Navigation. Retrieved from
http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2012/02/13/progressive-and-responsive-navigation/
 Patterns and cases
 UI Patterns. (2014). Design patterns: Navigation. Retrieved from http://ui-patterns.com/patterns?category_id=1
 The Smashing Editorial. (2012). Web Design Navigation Showcases. Retrieved from
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/web-design-navigation-showcases/
 Mesker, M. (2012). Scalable Navigation Patterns in Responsive Web Design. Retrieved from
http://www.palantir.net/blog/scalable-navigation-patterns-responsive-web-design
 Frost, B. (2012). Responsive Navigation Patterns. Retrieved from http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/web/responsive-
nav-patterns/
 Frost, B. (2012). Complex Navigation Patterns for Responsive Design. Retrieved from
http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/web/complex-navigation-patterns-for-responsive-design/
 Quince. (2014). Navigation Patterns. Retrieved from http://quince.infragistics.com/#/Search$tag=Navigation
12