website navigational aids

Website Navigational Aids

Friday, March 7th, 2008
by George Appiah

I have observed many of my readers are not into all this blogging stuff. These people often hit the front page, read the first ten items there, and run away — thinking that’s all there is. This is a big shame on my part, as it clearly means I’m not helping my readers to find my content.

Magnifying glassSo I’ve been working on ways to make it easier for the Mr. & Mrs Non-Techie Joes to quickly find their way around this website. Here are some of the current navigational aids:

  1. Archives Page: The archives page lists all the past journal entries, neatly arranged in reverse chronological order. Note that this page lists only the journal entires (powered by WordPress), and doesn’t include those pages outside the WordPress system
  2. I’ve got some really neat hacks and guides coming soon. These will live outside the journal, but will have a clear navigation on the left like this Einstein collection and the great quotes
  3. Site Search: Look up, to the right. I’ve just built a search tool for this site, using Google’s Custom Search Engine solution. This should be the easiest way to quickly locate any information around here
  4. Pagination: I’ve also implemented a numbered pagination system at the bottom of all archive pages of the journal. See, for instance, the front page of the journal.

I’m still tinkering around over here. My goal is to make it dead simple for everyone to quickly find their way around this website. If I’ve gone through the trouble of writing something, I’ve got to do all it takes to make it easy for people to find what I write.