Aug. 2000 Issue of
WebBusiness Magazine
A Closer Look Index
BY LOU ROSENFELD
 Louis Rosenfeld is president of Argus Associates, which specializes in providing information architecture consulting to Fortune 500s. He is coauthor of the best-seller, Information Architecture on the World Wide Web. Read previous installments of "A Closer Look." |
nformation architects, like myself, spend their days organizing huge messy blobs of information (e.g., most of today's web sites) so users can find what they need more easily, and so site owners can manage their information more efficiently. Information architects, it's embarrassing to admit, get excited about things like taxonomies, search engines, site indices, and content maintenance policies. And more than anything, we natter on about how successful sites are the result of planning before implementing, leading us to create site "blueprints" just like real "bricks-and-mortar" architects do.
So you might be surprised to read I am now going to criticize a site for being over-architected. Frankly, I'm surprised too. And this is a site I actually enjoy. But Brint.com, "the Premier Business and Technology Portal and Global Community Network for E-Business, Information, Technology, and Knowledge Management," makes my head spin with too much of a good thing. Have a look at the site's main page and you'll see what I mean:
Wall of links, wall of death.
The more the merrier
On this page, I counted no fewer than 16 navigational systems (things that help you get around the site). Brint.com wants you to know that you can navigate its site, and, damn it, they're going to repeat this point 16 times. Moving from top to bottom, left to right, you can navigate by:
- A good old-fashioned search box in the upper left hand corner (though the box migrates and sometimes completely disappears on other pages).
- "Make this your Start Page," "Tell a Friend," and a bunch of other items that seem to be about managing your use of the site.
- "Network Here": you'd be generous to say that these have to do with community, but then you'd have to ignore items like "Book Reviews" and "Scratch & Win."
- "Learn Here": a bunch of topical "libraries" (how do these relate to the various "portals" on this page?) as well as some news thrown in.
- "Shop Here": where I'd hoped to find a T-Shirt for sale that reads "Knowledge Management Rules!".
- "Free Stuff!," which includes a confusing link to "Search Engine".
- A conferences area that links to a great calendar.
- A somewhat miscellaneous set of site-wide navigational options in the yellow bar at the top of the page.
- A pull-down menu filled with a hugely long, unsorted, and unusable list of miscellaneous items.
- "GenBiz," "E-Business," "BizTech" and other miscellaneous jargony items.
- The "E-Business & Electronic Commerce Portal" as opposed to...
- The "Internet Business Technology Portal" which is different than ...
- The "Knowledge Management Portal" (not to be confused with the "Knowledge Management Library") which is followed by...
- The "General Business & Technology Portal" which is somehow different from the first two portals.
- "Guest Book," "Site Map," and some other site-wide navigational options at the bottom of the page.
- "Latest News," which includes both "Latest Tech News" and "Technology News" (which must be the tech news that came just before the latest news came out).
- "Books: What's Hot," which includes three "management" subcategories, a subcategory on "Knowledge Management," as opposed to "Books on Knowledge."
And did we mention that you'll find jobs here?
As bad as too many navigational systems can be, it's worse when their value is degraded because they overlap. Brint.com does that too. For example, you'll find these terms referenced far more often than is probably necessary:
- 10 links to "jobs"
- 10 links to various types of "news"
- 7 links to "knowledge management"
- 7 links to "forums"
- 6 links to "books" or "book reviews"
- 5 links to "technology"
Sometimes with more you get less
This hyper-navigational architecture hurts Brint.com in a number of ways. In order to squeeze in so many navigation systems and links, the site's information design really suffers; the main page is testament to a layout that can't cope with volume. But perhaps worse is the impact on the site's actual content, it's raison d'etre.
Architecturally speaking, Brint.com is a top-heavy site. So much effort has been placed on navigation at the top levels that good "bottom-up" architecture has been completely forgotten. For example, the architecture of one page listing some of Brint.com's content (in this case, references to articles on "Out-of-Box Thinking") renders that content almost useless: 199 links are presented with nothing but titles.
Where do you want to go today?
We can't distinguish (or sort) these articles by source, author, date, subtopic, or any other criteria that might help us actually find the most useful articles on out-of-the-box thinking. Perhaps in their efforts to overdo the architecture at the site's upper levels, Brint.com's designers ran out of gas by the time they got around to pages like this.
Brint.com is a website that isn't just over-architecture, it's overarchitected badly. The information architect's goal is not to provide users with *all* potential navigational possibilities; the goal is to provide users with the most *appropriate* ways to get around the site. It's a simple case of the 80/20 rule: a small number of navigational options will serve the majority of users' needs. Adding more, as Brint.com has done, makes things worse, not better.
A main page, like any other interface, falls apart when it tries to be all things to all people. Had it focused on the few best ways to help users navigate, Brint.com would have been greatly improved: the site would be easier to use and links wouldn't overlap as much. And because there would be fewer navigational systems to maintain at the top levels of the site, more time and energy could be devoted to the lower levels of the site where the content lives. And for a portal like Brint.com, content should be king.
Read previous installments of "A Closer Look."
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