Re: Guided navigation systems

Hi Hal,

I've just gone through some early stages of this a guided navigation
project. Three things come to mind when thinking about the UI of guided nav:


1. feedback to user - show the user what they searched for, and how they've
refined (forrester research's website is a good example of feedback)
2. prioritize dimensions - go through an exercise with stakeholders and
users to determine what 'dimensions' for guided navigation are going to be
most useful - e.g., refining by price, by author, by date, etc.
3. take advantage of built-in 'content spotlighting' - our guided navigation
tool allows businesses to create rules, based on keyword or dimesion value,
to return 'spotlighted' content that is separated from the search results.
for example, if user searches for 'iraq' highlight the special report the
business did on iraq outside of the search results. this can bring a lot of
value to the user, but requires a lot of work in rule creation/maintenance
for the business.

At this stage our prototype is still in early stages, so we've yet to get
feedback from users...

Some example websites:

http://www.forrester.com
http://www.homedepot.com
http://www.chapters.ca


On Dec 20, 2007 3:55 PM, Hal Shubin <[email protected] > wrote:

> Does anyone have any experience with "guided navigation"
> search/browse systems? For example, when you buy a refrigerator at
> sears.com
> (http://www.sears.com/shc/s/s_10153_12605_Appliances_Refrigerators_Bottom+Freezer+Refrigerators
> ),
> you get a list of categories on the left side. As you make choices in
> the categories (eg, "bottom freezer" or "black" or "$1000 to $1500"),
> the list of results automatically update.
>
> I'm looking for information on what makes a good UI for this sort of
> system, how users respond to variations in the design, etc.
>
> thanks                          -- hs
>
>
> Hal Shubin
> Interaction Design, Inc.
> 617 489 6595
> www.user.com
>
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