Main conference presentation

Core+Paths - A design framework for findability

Are Halland, Mona Halland

Saturday March 24 2007, 5:00 - 5:45PM

We believe that our traditional sitemaps, flows and wireframes tend to ignore some of the most important aspects of findability, simplicity, prioritization and persuasion:

• We create "empty structures", leaving content to be "filled in" by others
• We focus on front and section pages, whereas 50% of users enter from Google
• We forget about SEO, marketing and other key aspects of findability
• We miss out on opportunities to solve business goals through Calls to Action
• We end up making huge websites plagued by navigation and information overload

Instead of creating hollow information structures, we believe that true findability needs to be designed from the inside and out. We need to start with the findable object itself, and focus on the Core content and functionality that will fulfil user needs as well as business problems.

In this presentation we will outline a design framework for thinking about websites and applications in terms of findable objects - Core pages or Core flows - and Inward and Outward Paths to and from these. Through focusing on Core and Paths the project team, the client and other stakeholders are “forced” to prioritize and simplify content and navigation – thus greatly improving findability and usefulness of the final result.