Breadth Versus Depth: Examples - Page 16

The navigational apparatus in the original design of news.com included three elements: a list of top-level destinations down the left side, a list of current news stories down the right side, and a list of related stories at the bottom. These latter cross-references are very helpful and enable users to find stories they might have overlooked originally. I am less pleased with the extensive space used to provide links to unrelated current news. I would have preferred to list the related stories at the top of the right column because that would maximize the likelihood that users will see these links. If a user was sufficiently interested in the topic of the current article to have chosen it from the table of contents, then it is very likely that the user would also be interested in reading some of the related stories. This is true even for users who find out that they are not sufficiently interested in the details of this specific story and therefore never scroll to the end of the page.

The revised 1999 design for news.com is better than the original design in many ways. In particular, the "yellow fever" stripe has vanished, meaning that a larger percentage of the space is allocated to the story. At the very bottom of the article is an innovative navigation aide: "See Story in Context," which links to related stories. Even better, if reading an old story, the context link includes listings of newer articles that describe what happened later.

Hierarchical Structure - Page 15
Designing Web Usability
Breadth Versus Depth: More Examples - Page 17