On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 3:41 AM, Rony Philip <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Which navigational approach is most suited?
1. Alphabetical Navigation: A primary navigation that simply
displays all
the alphabets. When user hovers the mouse on any alphabet, all the
items
related to that particular alphabet is displayed.
2. Categorized Navigation: Group items under different categories (tab
navigation) like - Electronics, Furniture, Technology, Supplies, etc.
First, I just thought I'd take advantage of this opportunity to remind
us of Jared's favorite (and mine) example of a categorized catalog
navigation:
http://www.mcmaster.com/
Second, I find it hard to imagine any practical utility whatsoever for
an alphabetically-organized navigation for a product catalog, except
perhaps if the list of stuff is entirely visible in one screen so the
user can find their selection (which seems unlikely, unless your
inventory is pretty small).
Any item I can think of in the office-supply world seems likely to
have a dozen different names and may appear under a dozen different
letters of the alphabet depending on the idiosyncrasies of the company
(more likely several companies) responsible for classifying and naming
the products (Ink, Printer Ink, Laser Printer Ink, Color Ink,
Cartridges, Replacement Ink, Refills, Accessories for Printers, etc.).
Leah's thesaurus suggestion is good, but you may end up laboring over
that thesaurus for a great many moons, and may need to update it
frequently.
IMHO, alphabetization only works if the subject matter has little to
no alternate possible naming. If every item in your index has one,
two, three or more alternate names, your labor increases by that same
factor, probably more.
Cheers
-Cf
Christopher Fahey
____________________________
Behavior
biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
me: http://www.graphpaper.com
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