4. Electronic Documents Should Be Navigable

Non-expert users typically depend more heavily on help files, navigation aids, and other supporting features. As more ordinary people encounter electronic media, those elements become more important.  As an electronic author, you should generally help a novice use your document.  At the same time, too much help slows down the experts.

• Use hyperlinks with care.
  • Build links using informative text.
  • Avoid extraneous links.
• Expect late arrivals and premature departures.
  • Any page on your site may be the only page your reader sees.
  • Help your reader navigate efficiently.

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Use Hyperlinks With Care

In some ways, hypertext frees readers by letting them pick and choose from among several paths through a document  At the same time, hypertext restricts readers, because they can follow only the links the author chose to create.  As an electronic author, you should build links using informative text, and avoid extraneous links.

• Build links using informative text

  
  Take advantage of the fact that linked text stands out, and use it to highlight the important information you offer.  Use the surrounding words to explain why the reader might want to click on the link.

  • For a web page about plagiarism, click here.
    (Sloppy writing; the word "here" jumps out, but it means little by itself.)
  • Click on the following link for a web page about plagiarism.
    (The linked text is more descriptive, but the sentence still offers no good reason for a reader to follow the link; further, since most readers don't need to be told that you click on links to make hypertext work, the instruction wastes time.)
  • All students are required to know the university's official definition of plagiarism.
    (The linked words describe what the document is about, and the context clarifies why a reader might want to read it.)
• Avoid extraneous links
  • For a reader with a specific goal in mind, link-saturated paragraphs can be distracting.
    My name is Dennis G. Jerz.  At present, I work for the Engineering Writing Centre in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto.  I am completing my Ph.D. at the Graduate School of English.  I am a citizen of the United States of America, although I have been living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada for six years.  I received my B.A. and M.A. in English at the University of Virginia.  I have recently accepted a job in the Department of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
    (Many people's first web pages include passages like this.  It may be fine for beginners who simply want to play with hyperlinks, but an annotated list is a much more efficient and useful way to organize a series of links.)
  • Internal cross-links may fight each other for your reader's attention.
  • Links to external sites may send your reader away prematurely.

  Obviously the solution is not to hide links; rather, offer links that actually help a  reader who wants to use your resources to achieve a goal.

Expect Late Arrivals and Premature Departures

Any page on your site may be the only page your reader sees.  Make it as useful as possible.

• Even a Brief Visit Should be Productive
  • On the way in...
    • Search engines may point users directly to one of your internal pages.
    • Don't assume your visitor has read any of your other pages.
    • Treat each page as an independent document.
  • On the way out...
    • Users can and will leave your web site.
      • A technical or service-oriented web site should try to satisfy the user as soon as possible.
      • Do not try to trick them into staying longer.
      • Aim to send them away satisfied.
    • If you want to keep their interest longer, don't employ tricks -- write stuff that's more interesting.
• Orient Your Reader Within Each Page
  • Provide meaningful navigation aids.
    • [ Go Back ]
      (This link would mean nothing to a user who didn't come from the place you want to send them.)
    • [ Home ]
      (There are millions of home pages out there.)
    • 
      (While most users of the present web site would probably understand the function of this graphic, to novices, it may seem like just a pretty picture.  [Hint: click on it.])
    • [ Engineering Writing Centre Home ]
      (Low-tech, but more informative than the graphic.  [So: why does this site use the logo instead? Well... umm... you see, graphics are cool...])
  • Provide navigation alternatives.
    • Is your document sequential, with a clear beginning and ending?  That may be good, and it may be bad.
      • Novice users typically prefer a sequential document, so they can tell when they have finished.
      • Expert users may object to tedious strings of "Go to next page" links.
    • A user should be able to change navigation strategies from moment to moment
      • The main navigation bar at the top of this page clearly reflects a hierarchical arrangement.
      • The arrow buttons at the top and bottom indicate the sequential arrangement of documents in this particular section.
        • The arrows appear at the top of the page for those users who want to click quickly through all the pages, in order to get an idea of what each page contains.
        • The arrows also appear at the bottom of the page because that's where sequential readers will end up when they make their decision about whether they want to keep reading.
      • The occasional hyperlink embedded in the main text indicates a thematic arrangement among various sections

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