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Offer examples to define concepts. But watch out for
examples that raise other issues, or make too many points at once.
… Get users to relate ideas to their knowledge and personal
interest via scenarios. … Case studies help the user
form a complete picture of the system and how it operates.
—Horton (1990)
Use links to offer more information. ... "If you just
want to read the page you’re on, fine; you’re not losing anything.
But if you want to follow the links, you can. That’s the great
thing about the Web."—Nielsen & Morkes (1997)
Provide "context" links to satisfy a range of audience
needs.—Levine (1997)
On long pages, include internal links.—Apple (1999)
You may not wish to cater specially for those who jump in out
of the blue, but it is wise to leave them with enough clues so as
not to be hopelessly lost. —Berners-Lee (1998)
Having both a short summary and full detail saves writing time.
It is often much easier for the writer to write a short
summary of the details, and then insert the details as raw data,
than to try to make a more comprehensive summary…The writer would
not be forced to guess how much to cover and err on the side of
providing too little information (cheating the reader) or too much
(wasting the writer and reader’s time). …The combination of
concise summaries and great detail is one of the ways that a
web document can be much better than a paper document. —Bricklin
(1998)
The evidence is strong that breadth should be preferred over
depth. —Shneiderman (1998)
Long and detailed background information can be relegated to
secondary pages; similarly, information of interest to a
minority of readers can be made available through a link without
penalizing those readers who don’t want it.
But hypertext should not be used to segment a long
linear story into multiple pages.—Nielsen (1999f)
Your audience will judge the utility of a site partly on
whether it has the right amount of information to suit their
needs. Your site should have enough breadth to be relevant
to more than a niche audience. However, if the subject matter is
too broad, the goal of the site may be unclear. Links, archives,
or search engines can provide a balance between providing valuable
content depth/breadth and providing so much information that your
site is hard to use or understand. —Microsoft (2000)
Think of linking as the quickest means to get the user to
the most relevant information. Whenever possible, state
conclusions and link to supporting details; enumerate
categories and link to lists; summarize and link to
full-length treatments. —Sun (2000)
Users rarely land directly at the desired page,
especially when using a search engine. But they often get close.
Close, but no cigar, as far as most sites are concerned, since it
is rare to find links to similar or related pages. —Nielsen
(2000a)
Supplement the primary links of a Web site with secondary
links—when appropriate. Key points:
- Use shortcut links to provide quick access from
the home page to important nodes located deeper in the
hierarchy.
- Use systematic secondary links to connect a
group of closely related nodes.
- Use associational links to indicate a special
relationship between two nodes….Associational links are "one
of a kind" links that designers build to connect related
nodes. -- Farkas and Farkas (2000)
Examples
Example #1
Original Paragraph:
How do you discover the business rules that apply in your
organization? By gathering requirements. You have to identify
actors, objects, and use cases, then construct an abstract
business model, which forms the conceptual basis for the
architectural model. As Alan Pope says, "A business rule is an
explanation of what the business is doing and why they are
doing it. It should not have the burden of how they are doing
it. The what of the business is the view of the business as
seen by an immediate customer. An immediate customer may be
internal or external to the organization. The why is the logic
that drives that what."
Revised Paragraphs:
How do you discover the business rules that apply in
your organization? By gathering requirements.
You have to identify actors, objects, and
use cases, then construct an abstract business model,
which forms the conceptual basis for the architectural
model.
The work we have done with Ubermann shows a case study of
the development of these models.
As Alan Pope says, "A business rule is an explanation of
what the business is doing and why they are doing
it."
- An example of a business rule might be, "The
manufacturing team makes the paper to the customer’s
specs."
- The business rule does not have the burden of
explaining how they are doing it. (The how
is explained in the scenario we create, as the
basis of procedures).
Pope concludes: "The what of the business is the
view of the business as seen by an immediate customer. An
immediate customer may be internal or external to the
organization. The why is the logic that drives that
what."
Example #2
How it Works (A Scenario)
We have organized our electronic library catalog around
authors, titles, and subjects-just like the card catalogs of
old. To find one or more books, here's what you do.
1. You choose a category, such as author, words in a title,
exact title, or subject, by clicking one of the items offered
in the Category List.
In a moment you see a new screen, asking for a little
additional detail about the kind of books you are after.
2. In the Detail screen, you type in the text that
you hope will lead you to the books you are after.
3. You click the giant red Search button.
If you are lucky, you get a list of authors, title, or
subjects that might be relevant like that in our Sample
Results. If you aren't so lucky, you're told that the
catalog doesn't have anything with that text as part of an
author's name, title, or subject. So you have to try
again.
Example #3
Wondering where to start?
Here are some examples of the way you might use our
genealogy information.
- If you are interested in locating people who have been
researching your family, or some branch of your family, you
can find email addresses and websites in our database of
Surnames.
- Just want to check up on a specific ancestor or line,
when you know where they lived? Check out Church and
Parish Records, Town and City Records, County
Records, State and Province Records.
- To get dates, addresses, and incomes, visit the
Census Archives.
Example #4
Case Study: Using our Photo Exchange
Geraldine took some wonderful pictures on her vacation, and
brought them to her local photo shop for development. They
told her that if she wanted, she could have her pictures
posted on the World Wide Web in our Photo Exchange, as
well as having prints made on paper.
- That way, she could send the images to her relatives
along with her email.
- Plus she could just tell people her personal address
for a Web site within the Photo Exchange, and
they could go there to view the entire set of pictures.
- And she could describe the pictures for visitors by
adding captions.
- If she only wanted certain people to visit, she could
also protect her site by creating a password.
Geraldine agreed. In one week, she had her prints in
hand, and the pictures were up on the Web. She emailed
everyone with one picture, and the address of her site on
Photo Exchange. Her family got to see the whole tour,
including tourist sites, their car, and their motels. Her
Mom said it was like a slide show at her own pace.
Example #5
Pioneering Nuclear Weapons
In the last fiscal year, the Nuclear Weapons Lab has
pioneered:
- The measurement of the melting curve of plutonium.
- Advanced methods for processing and recovering
plutonium.
- The recovery of actinides and toxic metals from a
variety of process streams through the hydride-dehydride
process.
- The development of sensors for monitoring special
nuclear materials (SNM).
- The development of extra-hard armor-piercing shells
using spent uranium.
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