Day 3 - Class Notes part 2

Day 3 - part 2





Digital Typography + Writing for the Web

organizing information



People SCAN for information

Inverted Pyramid - Journalistic : use topical sentences at the begining of each paragraph.

Also writing in an inverted pyramid is that the article can be slashed off at the end if it is too long and the main content is still there.

Also, prime realestate is in the top half, so that is where the main content/ important stuff should be.








Road Map






HOMEWORK:
Take one of the bad interfaces and re-design it.
Use Lorem Ipsum text, so that the site is not in English.
2 sites a piece or 1 done really well

Day 3 - Class Notes

Nav Purposes
Go!
Hierarchy - steer the user
Signposts "You are here"
User = :) You want the user to feel safe and not lost.
What's Available
Organization


Nav Structures
Global Nav aka Persistent Nav
(footer - might contain some navigation structures)
Breadcrumbs - The pathway between homepage and where ever you are
example: HOME > blah > blah > PAGE
Inline

(Site id)
Global Nav --> Sections > Subsections Nav --> (PAGES) : local nav, utilities, sitemap

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Hierarchy Guidelines

Cut the Chatter - reduce the content where possible

Heat Map - typically F shape
find ways to pull away from that F shape

















Strunk and White - Elements of Style
- reduce level of noise
- useful content > more prominant
- reduces scrolling

Follow Conventions
Since the web hasn't really been around that long we are still developing conventions. Most of the conventions we currently have are taken from other interfaces.

Metaphors for physical Interfaces:
Home Button is a House, Trash, Folders, locks, Shopping cart, Search is magnifying glass, Mailboxes, Envelopes, Attachments are paperclips or pushpin.


People expect to see these things and expect to use them in conventional ways. You can come up with your own you don't want to re-invent the wheel.

Categorizing + Relating Info
Spanning two columns with one header is a newspaper convention.