D brand identity repository

[Russel Winder]

On Mon, 2011-07-04 at 11:56 -0600, David Gileadi wrote:
[ . . . ]
> One concern I have is that the D site has a lot of pages, and the 
> navigation can be a bit hairy.  I'd like to see a mockup of a sub-page, 
> a Phobos or Language Spec page for instance, that shows what 
> sub-navigation would look like with your design.

Although my familiarity with the experimental studies is now 12+ years
old, and so arguably a little out of date, the headline from then was
that there is a very complex interaction between "immediate visual
impact", "navigability", and "need to use".  If the "immediate visual
impact" of a page is poor then there has to be a very high "need to use"
for "navigability" to be a factor.  Similarly if the "navigability" is
poor then "need to use" has to be high for good "immediate visual
impact" to offset the problems.  In the middle ground there is a lot of
individual preference.

Of course where "immediate visual impact" and "navigability" are good
"need to use" falls away as a factor, and indeed the web site enters the
realm of being a positive draw.

So what is my point?  Much of the debate recently has been about
"immediate visual impact" and from what I can tell, none has been about
"navigability".  Without there being an easily inferable navigation
model, there are always going to be problems, and often they manifest as
grumbles about "immediate visual impact" whereas in fact the problem is
a lack of "navigability".

Basically, I think there needs to be a discussion of the navigation
model and navigation structures as much and probably before discussing
the look.
-- 
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder at ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel at russel.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder
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