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1 - for managers (just need the steps and basic concepts)
2 - for staff (need the details)
3 - for novice staff (need the details plus more "step-by-step", background and explanations).
Would like to present this as "3 parallel tracks", where the user can either see all 3 at once, but not be too visually confused, or click on a button to elect to see only 1 of the 3 tracks (on either the current page, all pages, or all remaining pages).
Of course, the "details and background" could be on links, pop-up windows, etc. if not too many.
MS_FrontPage had an "outline" feature, where details would appear or disappear on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, but this required too much user clicking.
My main concerns are:
1. Ease of use and usability.
2. Simplicity
3. Ease of maintenance and adding sections.
4. Download speed.
5. Looks
I'm just starting and now looking for concepts and ideas. Got any?
Thanks All!
Are you sure that there will be a need to compare the three tracks simultaneously? That seems like a major hurdle to me - you are looking to present all three, plus any of three combinations of 2, plus any of the three on their own? That's 7 potential screen configurations and a very hearty challenge to clarity of navigation.
I see what you mean. And (like any engineering) the final concept will be a compromise and not do all I'd like. But I want to start by addressing the full challenge.
The reason I see to try for all three at once (or an easy way to switch) is that I don't think a user can be tightly defined as a domain expert Vs novice. A real user would find areas where they already understand what's involved and didn't want the detail, yet other areas where they did want detail. So would the "novice".
I'd be happy with an easy way to switch back and forth, but how would you keep synchronized with where the user was in one track so you switched them to the exact same "thought" in the other track? And then back to where they were?
I suppose the first design concept compromise would be to go to only one stream of content and simply use hyperlinks to do the 2nd (detailed) stuff (with JS:history.back(1)) to take them back. Then for the 3rd level, add yet more links from the 2nd level content. This is more in keeping with standard HTML, but seems difficult to administer, edit and maintain. Also seems impossible for the user to visualize what's available, whereas 3 visible tracks lets the user always know what's available.
If graphic content is very different on each level, this might make for a big initial download, but if it's mostly textual differences it might work.
That would make the "track selection" available at any time, yet provide the most room for each track's content. If the images were thumbnails, just big enough to convey the concept, with links to enlargements, might not slow download too much.
I use CSS for typefaces, as I know that is well supported. Do you know if layer support is fairly universal yet?
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You know, a question underlying this topic (which I've wondered about) is whether a web site can be made to represent a "complete knowledge domain".
For example, suppose I wanted to support a pretty straightfoward, factual knowledge domain, say one in engineering, like noise control in Acoustical Engineering (an engineering discipline I used to practice).
It seems to me that a weblog, hub or vortal does part of what you need, a WBT (Web-Based Training) approach does some, an ASP that would provide actual calculations and add a standard coommercial web site to present the available noise control products and prices, plus case studies and misc. stuff would, all added together, get pretty close.
Have never tried this, but a web site that could first teach a subject, then provide most of the knowledge domain's important reference works, also have online tools to allow practicing in that domain, provide current domain news, present all the major products (with specs and application notes and case studies), and whatever else comes to mind, would be a powerful tool. Throw in a forum, some business, financial, legal and customer relationship tools and you could just about sell a site as an "instant career".
A lot of work, yes. Do you think one web site (plus its links) could represent a whole knowledge domain? Seen any examples?
Yes, a very big project. I have one client who is using that basic approach in a medical field, but the budget is not big enough (yet) to do it flat out. We have a good start, and are getting decent website traffic from the newly interested through to the "post-graduate" level, but it's still a long way from representing the total knowledge base.
I'm not sure that something like this should be (or even can be) web-only, especially at its most in-depth focus. For instance, this client offers videotaped seminars. They're soon to be streamed over the web, but playing them on a TV is still a much better experience, and probably will be for quite a while.
Even beyond this, there's something missing when we acquire knowledge impersonally. Anyone who is really an "adept" in their field has had a mentor, a teacher, or a coach. It's only in person-to-person teaching where something non-verbal and very important gets communicated, something which can't be digitized.
Remembering my own most important mentors, convinces me that the web could never replace that kind of learning.
Especially one intensive 10 day workshop where we students lived and worked together with the artist/instructor and each other almost 24/7.
When fully immersive VR arrives, well maybe then.
Still, that doesn't make all that the web can and could do less valuable.
Hope you'll keep us posted on the progress of your client's "knowledge domain" project.
This client had in the area of 10,000 search engine referals last week. Because of the breadth of their coverage, the highest single keyword had only 14 hits from Google -- that means a lot of different keywords are bringing in traffic, and that's also as I feel it should be with a thorough and specialized knowledge base. It's exactly the result we're aiming for.
Now, if you hide content with CSS until the proper button is clicked to make it visible, that hidden copy will still end up being indexed by the spiders. Because it is specialized terminology, visits from search engine users are inevitable, but unfortunately visitors won't see their search words when they first load the page.
Even using the browser's "Find in Page" function gives inscrutable results when the content is in a div that is not currently visible. This is a pretty big downside IMO, no matter how usable the page would be otherwise.
A not too elegant workaround would be 3 search tools on your site, like "Search Novice Track", "Search Pro Track", etc. Or some way to program an on-site search engine to open the necessary track(s) to show whatever it had previously indexed that the visitor was referencing.
Would intrasite linking also get weird? In other words, if you make a section invisible and it has inline text links in it or anchors (bookmarks) do they still work?
What if a section is visible and you link, say to a glossary, then turn the previous section invisible while you are in the glossary and then try to go back to an anchor in the mow invisible section from the glossary?
Guess some serious experimenting is in order...
