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<blockquote data-quote="(contact)" data-source="post: 4188234" data-attributes="member: 41"><p>Well, yeah, IA is all about the user experience. It's all about helping people find what they're looking for (and sometimes find what they didn't know they were looking for until they found it).</p><p></p><p>Of course it's irrelevant to a user if they structure their commenting well to be helpful to later developers, but if they're using poor practices (like the Gleemax site -- rummage through that code for a shudder) it can make the pages too heavy, make searching more difficult, etc.</p><p></p><p>My take is that any site is like a house, or a meal -- if you have quality at each point of the process, you're that much more likely to achieve a quality end-result.</p><p></p><p>I love D&D, and I'd love to see the D&D website showcase the fantastic amount of content they have on there. The folks at WotC also love D&D and they totally get it from a gamer's p.o.v. -- they want to put their game online in a useful way, but they don't seem to get it from a web design/development p.o.v. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think for purposes of information architecture, I'd start by looking closely at well-designed newspaper sites -- they deal with an enormous amount of content that is constantly changing with repeat visitors looking for new information, and also making return visits for older information. </p><p></p><p>(I really like the <a href="http://www2.ljworld.com" target="_blank">Lawrence Journal World</a> and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football" target="_blank">Guardian Football</a>.)</p><p></p><p>Then, it would go basically like this:</p><p></p><p>1. Survey and review users to find out what they come to your site looking for. You can sometimes get good metrics from page traffic and click-through data, etc., but you also have to talk to them to find out what they are there for. Obviously, they can't click-through on the things you don't know you're not doing.</p><p></p><p>1a. Set your top-level desires as far as what you want to showcase as a business (from here on out, it would most likely be Dragon & Dungeon, new print releases, plus the DDI. Keep it simple. You can't, can't, <em>can't</em> make everything you do top-level content. If you have 15 points of emphasis, you really have no points of emphasis. The current site suffers from this syndrome.</p><p></p><p>2. Organize everything else by its use, into as few relevant categories as possible, with an eye to how users approach the information (as opposed to how it might be created in-house. Give each one of these top-level menu items its own home page off the site root. (i.e. wizards.com/dnd/player_content/).</p><p></p><p>2a. Repeat steps 1-2 for each of these top-level topics.</p><p></p><p>3. Lighten the page load as much as possible. Get rid of the meaningless decorative bling and spend the bandwidth on content-relevant graphics (you've got a truck-full). The page structure can be skinned any way you see fit over time, if you've written standards-based semantic code to start with.</p><p></p><p>Give your content appropriate column width for font size (for maximum readability -- the ratios are out there) and give your content enough room to breathe. </p><p></p><p>Group navigation in the same places on each page, considering 1. above -- what are they doing and why? Do they want to go from page to page via search? Put a search function at the end of articles. Use things like "related topic" links -- which could be the top 5 search results using the page header as a search string, for example.</p><p></p><p>And no iframes. Just don't do it. Don't jam your design into fixed vertical widths. It's a mental artifact from the print world (in my experience), and it just isn't appropriate. The reason their archive lists are in such a tiny font? They are trying to cram a big thing into a small space. Build your layout with the understanding that things will grow. </p><p></p><p>And, uh . . . 4. Test your new site on a small group of users and find out if all your ideas actually worked. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Rinse, repeat as needed.</p><p></p><p></$.02></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="(contact), post: 4188234, member: 41"] Well, yeah, IA is all about the user experience. It's all about helping people find what they're looking for (and sometimes find what they didn't know they were looking for until they found it). Of course it's irrelevant to a user if they structure their commenting well to be helpful to later developers, but if they're using poor practices (like the Gleemax site -- rummage through that code for a shudder) it can make the pages too heavy, make searching more difficult, etc. My take is that any site is like a house, or a meal -- if you have quality at each point of the process, you're that much more likely to achieve a quality end-result. I love D&D, and I'd love to see the D&D website showcase the fantastic amount of content they have on there. The folks at WotC also love D&D and they totally get it from a gamer's p.o.v. -- they want to put their game online in a useful way, but they don't seem to get it from a web design/development p.o.v. I think for purposes of information architecture, I'd start by looking closely at well-designed newspaper sites -- they deal with an enormous amount of content that is constantly changing with repeat visitors looking for new information, and also making return visits for older information. (I really like the [URL=http://www2.ljworld.com]Lawrence Journal World[/URL] and [URL=http://www.guardian.co.uk/football]Guardian Football[/URL].) Then, it would go basically like this: 1. Survey and review users to find out what they come to your site looking for. You can sometimes get good metrics from page traffic and click-through data, etc., but you also have to talk to them to find out what they are there for. Obviously, they can't click-through on the things you don't know you're not doing. 1a. Set your top-level desires as far as what you want to showcase as a business (from here on out, it would most likely be Dragon & Dungeon, new print releases, plus the DDI. Keep it simple. You can't, can't, [I]can't[/I] make everything you do top-level content. If you have 15 points of emphasis, you really have no points of emphasis. The current site suffers from this syndrome. 2. Organize everything else by its use, into as few relevant categories as possible, with an eye to how users approach the information (as opposed to how it might be created in-house. Give each one of these top-level menu items its own home page off the site root. (i.e. wizards.com/dnd/player_content/). 2a. Repeat steps 1-2 for each of these top-level topics. 3. Lighten the page load as much as possible. Get rid of the meaningless decorative bling and spend the bandwidth on content-relevant graphics (you've got a truck-full). The page structure can be skinned any way you see fit over time, if you've written standards-based semantic code to start with. Give your content appropriate column width for font size (for maximum readability -- the ratios are out there) and give your content enough room to breathe. Group navigation in the same places on each page, considering 1. above -- what are they doing and why? Do they want to go from page to page via search? Put a search function at the end of articles. Use things like "related topic" links -- which could be the top 5 search results using the page header as a search string, for example. And no iframes. Just don't do it. Don't jam your design into fixed vertical widths. It's a mental artifact from the print world (in my experience), and it just isn't appropriate. The reason their archive lists are in such a tiny font? They are trying to cram a big thing into a small space. Build your layout with the understanding that things will grow. And, uh . . . 4. Test your new site on a small group of users and find out if all your ideas actually worked. :) Rinse, repeat as needed. </$.02> [/QUOTE]
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