Comments on: Visual menus: structure with style

By: Visual menus « Susan E. Hendrich

Visual menus « Susan E. Hendrich — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:26:09 +0000

[...] Visual menus I’m wild about Cathy Moore’s post on Visual menus: structure with style. [...]

By: Making Change » Laugh, and your learners laugh with you. Maybe.

Making Change » Laugh, and your learners laugh with you. Maybe. — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:45:33 +0000

[...] Visual menus: structure with style [...]

By: James Ryan

James Ryan — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:25:54 +0000

Each day we get at least dozen e-mails from people requesting their password

I struggle to deal with this when the only function on the sign on page OTHER that the sign in function, Username, Password, Submit is a link named ‘Forgotten Your Password?’

Must control FIST OF DEATH

By: Visual menus: structure with style - by Cathy Moore « Writers Gateway

Visual menus: structure with style - by Cathy Moore « Writers Gateway — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 04:48:38 +0000

[...] menus: structure with style – by Cathy Moore Cathy Moore has written a very interesting article on course menu and navigation design in her [...]

By: Rupa

Rupa — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 04:35:00 +0000

Thanks for this post Cathy.

This is really very informative.

By: Laura Kratochvil

Laura Kratochvil — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 01:03:41 +0000

I also noticed that in your sample you do not call the actual arrow “Next” -it is just an arrow. We have gotten client compaints that since the arrow does not say NEXT…how do you know it is a next arrow…as opposed to an arrow that is going to teleport you to Spain, or something. ARGGGGHHH…yes, I am serious. I had to change our “arrow” to have the actual “Next” text on it for a client.

By: wendy phillips

wendy phillips — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 23:10:33 +0000

I always include a menu on the intro page and a nav button in the interface to return to the menu at any time. I do this because I build my courses to be multifunctional – not just for the scheduled training event but also ongoing as a reference and coaching tool. I want people to be able to come back and easily find the section they want to review, rather than having to click through to find it.

In my case it’s simple text links because the topics are usually too numerous for a visual. With courses that form a suite (what we call a ‘toolkit’), I provide a ‘master map’ that lists all the courses and their individual pages – this is then linked into our knowledge management tool for easy reference to any topic.

Love your posts, Cathy (and Tom!)

By: Tom Kuhlmann

Tom Kuhlmann — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:45:41 +0000

Normally, I’d agree…however I am always surprised at how often people struggle with basic things. I once had a client who told me that I had to change the navigation because three times in a row she clicked on the wrong thing (even though it was clearly marked and she was the only person who did that). I just sent her an email and told her not to click there:) I think that’s the difference between kids and adults. Kids will click around and explore until they find what they want. Many adults are fearful of clicking in the wrong area that they complain if everything’s not clear. I always point to places like eBay and Facebook. They don’t have great training and yet millions of people figure it out. In fact, the figuring it out is part of the learning process. Look forward to your next post.

By: Cathy Moore

Cathy Moore — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:33:10 +0000

Tom, thanks for you comment. I agree that any form of writing or designing by committee is gruesome and inefficient. I think it’s best to have one small team quickly produce 2 or at most 3 options for the stakeholders to select from and leave it at that. The “right” pictures will never be found.

Another option is to set a time limit. For example, give your team only 30 minutes on iStockPhoto to find usable graphics. Whatever
they find in that time limit will have to be good enough–and it likely won’t be any worse than the 200 other options they’d find if you gave them more time.

My understanding of Brian’s “click here” post is that the research said it worked in a certain marketing situation–when the purpose was to motivate the readers to continue reading a post. Likewise, the direct mail letters that tell you “Please turn page” tell you that because research shows it helps in that marketing situation. People know they need to turn the page to continue reading a letter, and we don’t need to say “Please turn page” at the bottom of every page in a book.

I think the success of the web shows that adults don’t need to be explicitly told where to click at every step in an interaction. If we make clear that the content is relevant and useful, an elearning project that uses a menu shouldn’t face any more usability issues than a basic web site.

By: Tom Kuhlmann

Tom Kuhlmann — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:27:55 +0000

Good post. I think that the reason most courses look like the first example is that it’s a lot easier to build a linear course that is focused on just content. I’ve been on projects where you’d sit in three weeks of meetings to pick the “right” 8 pictures to put on the splash screen. I can’t imagine having to negotiate all of the nuances of a scenario-based interaction.

My 6 year old son will just jump on the PC and start clicking around his games until he figures them out. Adults I know will just sit there waiting for detailed instructions to tell them what to do. In fact, Brian Clark at Copyblogger just posted that a “click here” instruction on blogs has a 8% higher click through rate. My guess it’s similar with elearning.