The Page Paradigm

Mark Hurst has written an interesting discussion about web pages and how people navigate. In it, he reminds us of something he wrote in 1999, “On any given Web page, users will either’ click something that appears to take them closer to the fulfillment of their goal, or click the Back button on their Web browser.” The interesting part of his message here, I think, is that the IA/designers’ focus on aspects of the UI such as navigation consistency is less important than the supporting of users in getting them to their intended goal. He says provocative things such as ‘users don’t care where they are in the website’. If you can get your head past that idea, 3 bullets summarize what this should mean for you in practice:

– Identify users’ goals on each page.

– De-emphasize or remove any page elements (or areas of a site) that don’t help to accomplish the goal.

– Emphasize (or insert) those links, forms, or other elements that either take users closer to their goal, or finally accomplish it. [IAslash]