Bian Chong (Brian), KHO Supervisor: Linda McIver Second Reader: Jon McCormack

Navigation Usability Good Navigation Design Existing Solutions Automated Navigation System Results Future Work

Web Authors Design websites with poor navigation and usability No site maps and/or breadcrumbs Consistency within a site Understanding on how users browse a site Users Hard to browse and find information Do not know where they are Do not know where they have been to Do not know where they can go next

 A collection of links that allow users to browse a site easily  Users usually ask themselves the following questions: Where I am Where I have been Where I can go next

 keep the site structure clear  Placement of logos and page headers must be consistent in a website  Each page header must be clear and relevant to the body content  Disable the link which displays the current web page

Knowing which web pages are visited Understanding the site structure better Knowing where they have been: Use of “back” button on Internet browsers Use of links which visit previous pages

Provide options for users to decide where to go Declare link titles that are relevant to the page Avoid web pages with no links

A measurement on how easy a user can access a site Learnability Memorability Error Satisfaction Four usability components:

 A website with simple and clear structure is easy to learn  How easy to access a site is dependent on users’ experience  Learnability criteria: Predictability Familiarity Generalizability Consistency

Website that is easy to use requires less memorization Limitation of human memory controls the number of events a user can remember

Ability to recover from error Ways to reduce errors made by users: Use of breadcrumbs Use of site Maps

Free from error / reduce number of errors made by users Understanding of a site structure Time spent to load a page Amount of information in a page Navigation of a site

Determined by navigation and usability criteria Content area Links Breadcrumbs Site maps Good navigation design criteria:

WYSIWYG Editors Hand Coding Microsoft FrontPage Macromedia Dreamweaver Vi / Vim Notepad/Wordpad Methods Frames

Written in Perl Retrieves navigation information automatically from a website. Able to edit navigation structure manually. Generates breadcrumbs automatically. Generates a site map automatically. Modifies page layout.

Page Header Navigation Titles (For Index Page) Body Content

(For other pages) Sub Headers Body Content Page Header

Modify navigation hierarchy Add titles into navigation menu Edit titles in navigation menu Delete titles in navigation menu Change title position in navigation menu Manage sub headers for each web page Modify page headers from each web page

Breadcrumb Navigation Menu Page Header Body Content (For Index Page)

Page Header Sub Headers (Site Map Page)

Breadcrumb is consistent with navigation menu

GUI Platform - improve program usability Able to deal with websites using frames Able to change font settings Better extraction of navigation information Built-in HTML validator