Navigation design
I have over ten years' experience of designing and producing user interfaces and navigation systems that can enable users to find the information they need easily and quickly.
The two extremes of interface design – completely open access, where users can access any part of the information in any order, and structured access, where users are guided down a preprogrammed route through the available content – present very different challenges to the designer.
And of course most learning materials fall somewhere between these two extremes. A completely structured approach can be demotivating for learners, and assumes that all learners are starting from the same knowledge base, while a completely open access system can be bewildering, and can leave learners open to the risk of missing core content that is vital to a full understanding of later, more complex material.
A good navigation system can help learners around all these problems, both in the way the information is structured, and in the way it is presented on screen or on the printed page.
With my experience of designing navigation systems and interfaces for everything from simple, information-based web sites to fully structured learning environments, I can help you structure your information in the most appropriate way for your learners' particular needs, and produce a set of tools that provide the right combination of open access and structured, directed learning.
I have always taken a keen interest in the latest research into usability, readability and interface design – for details of some of the most interesting research see the links page.
For some examples of my work in this area see the web design and learning materials pages in the portfolio section.
