Site Structure vs. Site Navigation

[Michael Bernstein <webmaven lvcm com>]

Hello all,

I've been lurking on the list for a few days, and have read
most of the archived threads, so I thought I'd offer my
thoughts on organizing web content. It seems that there is
some confusion regarding the difference between
site-structure and site-navigation.

In my experience, it usually does not make sense to organize
a sites content (and by implication the site's main
navigation) by any other method than a strict singly-rooted
topical heirarchy (there is an exception to this which I'll
discuss later). When organizing content in this way, you are
primarily concerned with a documents *subject*, not it's
format or audience. This lets experienced visitors find the
specific content they're looking for quickly, as well as
making it clear to contributors and maintainers where new
documents should be placed (Q:"Does the GNOME applet
tutorial belong in the applet section or the tutorial
section?" A: In the applet section, because there is no
'tutorial section').

Note however, that this does *not* mean that visitors who
wish to navigate by some other method are thwarted, but
rather that supplemental navigation methods are needed as
well. As a trivial example, a 'what's new' box on the front
page can list the three or five most recently added or
revised content items in the site, and link to them
directly, as well as linking to a more detailed 'what's new'
page (a chronological schema) that offers further
subcategorization (for example a page that lists the most
recently added or revised tutorials, and another that lists
applications). The point here is to lead people to the
content that they want by whatever route they choose, while
making it clear that the content they have found has a
specific location within the site as a whole (it helps here
if the URL matches the site structure).

Similar supplemental navigation pages that organize a site's
content according to other schemas (by author, document
type, etc.) are all possible to generate automatically, as
long as the content has the appropriate meta-information
attached to it. Additionally, we should not neglect the use
of in-line links to create easy access points to content
deep in the site, as well as cross-linking documents.

The exception I alluded to earlier is that it is also
possible to organize a site's content to encourage community
contributions, by letting visitors 'join' the site and
giving them a personal folder that they can add content to.
This has the disadvantage of scattering the bulk of the
site's content across many personal folders (essentially
organizing the site according to author). It then becomes
neccessary to create the main navigation schema (a topical
heirarchy) as well as the supplemental navigation methods
automatically by using meta-information.

The two questions that must be answered considering these
two approaches (although they're not mutually exclusive)
are:

a) Do we expect (or want) most content to come from outside
contributors ('outside', in the context of an open-source
project, meaning non-core developers), or from a smaller
group?

b) Should a document be 'owned' by it's author/maintainer,
or belong to the site as a whole? Before I get flamed on
that second question, please consider whether a developer
should for example 'own' their application's listing on the
site, as well as any supplementary documentation they care
to add. If so, it should probably be placed within the
maintainers personal folder.

I would very much like to hear other thoughts on this
subject, but please keep in mind that I've deliberately
avoided discussing layout, graphics, implementation details
or specific tools at this stage.

Cheers,

Michael Bernstein.

P.S. If you've noticed that I've not mentioned a search
interface, congratulations. I do not consider a search
interface, however good, a replacement for good structure
and navigation. A user should never be forced to search.
Unfortunately, many sites use search as a band-aid for poor
structure and navigation.

P.P.S two excellent books on structuring sites and
navigation are 'Web Navigation: Designing the User
Experience' by Jenifer Fleming, and 'Information
Architecture for the World Wide Web' by Louis Rosenfeld and
Peter Moreville. Both books are from O'Reilly.