On 4 Aug 2005, at 11:01 PM, Donna Maurer wrote:
That's not quite true ;)
I did say generally speaking ;-)
As people become more accustomed to websites and web application
conventions,
their experience with these increases. Intuitiveness is dependent on
experience, so
the ease of use/intuitiveness also changes.
agreed... this follows Donald Norman's definition of affordance - we
can divine how to use something by it's appearance. But, the usability
of breadcrumbs has not changed simply because more people use them...
it's just that more people use them.
More importantly, they are usually a secondary (read optional) form of
navigation (if used as such, and not as 'orientating' devices) that can
be ignored if the user doesn't understand their purpose.
OTOH, flyout/dropdowns are usually primary navigation devices that
present more challenges to a greater number of users for a number of
reasons (see John Allsop's earlier messages) and as John pointed out
they break users UI expectations (so they have low affordance?).
Donna, do you have the results for breadcrumb usage? The latest
discussions I found is this one in 2004 with a reference to study in
2003, and some other research:
http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/61/breadcrumb.htm of
which none suggest more people use breadcrumbs, rather, when they do
they complete tasks quicker.
This is also a good read:
http://www.otal.umd.edu/SHORE2000/webnav/index.html
kind regards
Terrence Wood.
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