Web Writing That Works!

           A Project of
           The Communication Circle

Guidelines Rants Patterns Poems Services Classes Press Blog Resources About Us Site Map

HomeGuidelines > Resources > Take a Position > 6. Menus

 

Re:

In House

My Own Menu

Testing Out Menus

6. Taking a position on menus

What’s your opinion of the cognitive burdens on the following sites? Please include generous samples and URLs in your position statement.

In House

Review the menu system for your organization’s Web site, starting at the Home page, and moving down one or more paths to the lowest possible level.

Report your thoughts at each click, your feelings, your physical sensations. Provide us with a narrative of the moment-to-moment experience. At the end, if you have any suggestions, make a list of recommendations for your Web-meister.

My Own Menu

Take a large complicated document that you have worked on (whether solo or collaboratively). Create a menu system for its online delivery.

Now write up what questions you encountered, what challenges you faced, how you came to think about the writing and organizing involved in making a menu system.

Although you must describe some aspects of your graphic interface, please keep the focus on the aspects that involve writerly skills.

Testing Out Menus

Review the menu system for one of the following Web sites, starting at the Home page, and moving down one or more paths to the lowest possible level.

Report your thoughts at each click, your feelings, your physical sensations. Provide us with a narrative of the moment-to-moment experience of menuing. At the end, if you have any suggestions, make a list of recommendations for the site:

About.com News: http://home.about.com/medianews/

Columbia Journalism Review: http://www.cjr.org/

Custer Battlefield: http://www.cbhma.org/

Defense Link News: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/

EINNews.com: http://www.centraleurope.com/

Ford: http://www.ford.com/en/default.htm

Getty Images: http://www.gettyimages.com

iVillage: http://www.ivillage.com/

Metropolitan Museum: http://www.metmuseum.org/

Native America Calling: http://www.nativeamericacalling. com/

New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/

State of New Mexico: http://www.state.nm.us/

The Hill (Congressional news): http://www.hillnews.com/

The Smithsonian: http://www.smithsonian.org

The Smoking Gun: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/

Topeka Capital Journal Online:
http://www.cjonline.com/

 

How to make your menus meaningful:

6a. Think of a heading as an object you reuse many times.

6b. Write each menu so it offers a meaningful structure.

6c. Offer multiple routes to the same information.

6d. Write and display several levels at once.

6e. When users arrive at the target, make it obvious.

6f. Confirm the location by showing its position in the hierarchy.

Resources on menus

Taking a Position on Menus

Heuristic Online Text (H. O. T.) Evaluation of Menus

Poster

 

 

Home | Guidelines | Rants | Patterns | Poems | Services | Classes | Press | Blog |
Resources | About Us | Site Map

Web Writing that Works!
http://www.WebWritingThatWorks.com
 © 2003 Jonathan and Lisa Price
The Communication Circle
Discuss at HotText@yahoogroups.com
Email us directly at ThePrices@ThePrices.com
Order Hot Text (the book) from Amazon