This is achieved through several methods, such as intelligent information architecture, intuitive interface design, and yes, also grabbing results in search engines. However, instead of trying to get people to your site to earn hits or even money, the idea is to connect the valuable information you offer with the people who can best use it. You can convert these customers to buyers more easily, yes, and that looks good for ROI and visitor metrics, but really the focus is on filling customer’s needs and helping them get there. 

Think about it. When you walk into a store, a helpful sales associate is always available to ask you how you are, let you know about sales, and offer to assist you. When customers find themselves in a strange new site, with no idea which way to go, findability can help. 

A List Apart featured an article on the findability “orphan”:

The fundamental goal of findability is to persistently connect your audience with the stuff you write, design, and build. When you create relevant and valuable content, present it in a machine readable format, and provide tools that facilitate content exchange and portability, you’ll help ensure that the folks you’re trying to reach get your message.

A website that ignores findability is whispering into the wind, hoping that someone passing by might catch a hint of its message. To further complicate the chances of reaching your target audience, a cacophony of other websites are vying for the same commodity—attention.

For those who want a quick look at findability and how it compares to search engine optimization, this presentation on SlideShare, Findability: Going Beyond SEO, is perfect. Aarron Walter has presented a comprehensive findability checklist as well. 

If you peek at the URL for Aarron’s checklist you’ll notice he mentions web standards. That’s right folks, web standards help make your site findable and more easily accessible by both screen readers and search engines too. Finally, as the value of search engine and other online marketing methods are recognized, people are seeing the importance of accessible, standards-compliant code and development.

More information on findability to follow in future posts. In the meantime, if you want to dive deep into findability on your own, check out Aarron Walter’s book, Building FIndable Websites. Ambient Findability by Peter Morville is excellent as well and comes highly recommended.

But I think she was right after all.

Sure the theory is sound, and it is absolutely a great read about human behaviour and how to match that behaviour effectively. In terms of studying cognition, Norman’s book cannot be denied as a classic. The concepts could be applicable anywhere, and I bet it’s a great text for university studies.

But for me? In the world of web design and technical documentation for software? The examples from engineering are so far removed, and the theory is so distant from what I want to do, that there are more modern books worth reading first.

I’ve come home with print versions of Designing The Moment by Hoekman, and Designing For The Social Web by Porter, both published by New Riders. Recently I saw someone point out that user experience design will be only taken seriously when those who do it actually have done the work. The person explained that just as in other disciplines, the theory needs to be applied to be proven as worthwhile. Actually integrating UX concepts – both within web sites and software interfaces – is an idea that is perhaps still in its infancy. Norman’s fascinating book is mature, thoughtful, but not as applicable to modern design.

Designing The Moment is subtitled “web interface design concepts in action”, and is literally several examples of real design decisions and a discussion of how they were developed with user experience in mind. Designing For The Social Web does something interesting; it recognizes the power of social marketing, yet focuses not on ROI, but on the users themselves. Designing Web Navigation is another one that discusses human behaviour and how we process human-computer experiences. Yes, we want to learn how people think, we want to know how they use the web, how they navigate, and what brings them back, but we want to do it by valuing the customers. Not just focusing on sales numbers and profits. These three are undeniably about modern design though; not engineering.

While I am absolutely fascinated by human-computer interaction and cognitive theory, and Norman is clearly an expert, I have to admit there is a limit to the time I can spend. Time is money. Money buys food. Food is eaten by my kids.

Ultimately, I don’t have the time for theory that needs a lot of processing to be applicable here and now. While I would love to have the time to read Norman’s The Design Of Everyday Things along with so many other HCI related books, there are just more practical modern books out there relating to web and interface design.

That said, if you’re not in the same position, you might still be interested in visiting Robert Hoekman Jr’s website as he provides free samples of some very exciting books – Designing The Moment and Designing The Obvious. I can’t possibly do better than this excerpt from Designing The Moment’s introduction itself,

Designing the Moment is:

• a “think-out-loud”view into design solutions from real projects
• a critical look at elements from every phase of a user’s interaction with a Web site or application
• a collection of principles and concepts to guide the design of everything from page layouts to social networking features

Most of all, it’s a blow-by-blow, expert analysis of the subtle details of an interface that make or break a user’s experience, and how to improve each and every interaction, one moment at a time.

So these two plus About Face 3 and Ambient Findability, along with Designing Interfaces, Designing Web Navigation, and Information Architecture For The World Wide Web… ok, plus the books on Ajax, CSS, Dojo, and JavaScript… and the ones on search engine marketing, web design for ROI and SEO… no wonder I never leave my desk and bookshelves.

Also, when can I find time to learn .Net and Flex. Argh. I need to have more brains plzktnx.

A little more digging revealed that Mr. Walter also wrote an article at A List Part introducing findability and its place in the web design world. Here he also explains how to get buy-in for findability at your company at different levels along with describing how each member of your project team contributes.

I find myself surprised and excited about the wealth of new information available in Building Findable Websites, from mark-up strategies and server-side strategies through working with JavaScript and Ajax, adding search engines and mailing lists, and maximizing content to draw readers in. Rather than a how-to or dry programming book, this one provides a holistic approach to build websites that are usable and effective.

In terms of publishers of web design/development books I adore Sitepoint, Friends of Ed, New Riders, and O’Reilly. If I want to learn a new language, I grab an O’Reilly or Sitepoint book first. Friends of Ed and New Riders have some great gems too though.

The Principles of Beautiful Web Design – Jason Beaird – Sitepoint – This is just exactly as it says; the principles of beautiful web designs. It is enjoyable to read, beautiful to look at, and an excellent way to learn the process of designing lovely sites.

Simply JavaScript – Yank & Adams – Sitepoint – I love the friendly but thorough writing found in Sitepoint books, and that is certainly found here. Best for someone who is brand new to JavaScript, it provides a thorough grounding in JavaScript with great explanations and examples.

The Usability Kit – Gaffney & Szuc – Sitepoint – Excellent templates and patterns for ensuring usability is designed within the site. This is actually a binder with a section of information and a big set of templates. Especially useful if you want to make usability a priority without doing a ton of research into the subject yourself, or just want a quick reference of ideas.

Deliver First Class Web Sites – Kaiser – Sitepoint – This is a set of 101 “essential checklists” and a quick reference so you can quickly and easily keep an eye on keeping your web site “first class”. Nothing new to learn here, just lists to keep things on track.

CSS Mastery – Advanced Web Standards Solutions – Budd, Moll, and Collison – Friends of Ed – This is where you go when you’ve learned CSS and want some advanced techniques.

The Zen of CSS Design – Shea & Holszshlag – New Riders – Gorgeous look at what CSS is capable of, using several of the designs from CSS Zen Garden to illustrate advanced web design & CSS techniques. This is the other book you need to grab if you’ve grown past the basics of CSS.

Bulletproof Ajax – Jeremy Keith – New Riders – This is rather introductory and I like the JavaScript overview as much as anything said about Ajax. If you have any other Ajax book and understand the principle of developing a site that is accessible even if JavaScript is turned off, you don’t need this one. If you want a short introduction to JavaScript and Ajax though, this one is great.

Bulletproof Web Design – Cederholm – New Riders – The title and subtitle say it all; “Bulletproof Web Design – Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS”. This is a third book for those who want to move from CSS reference to CSS mastery.

The Elements of User Experience – Garrett – New Riders – This is a slim volume that is excellent for those just starting to learn about information architecture, interaction and interface design, and user experience as a whole. Start here to learn and understand the basic elements and terms used within user-centered design for the web. If you want to go from developing code and slapping things together to truly understanding how to design a worthwhile experience for your users, read this short yet excellent book.

Mastering Dojo – Russell – O’Reilly – This is the definitive guide to the JavaScript framework known as Dojo. Thorough, complete, detailed, and yet enjoyable reading as well.

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web – Morville & Rosenfeld – O’Reilly – Covers IA in terms of business goals, education, ethics, and sales, as well as processes, tools, methodologies, systems, strategies, design, and more. Theory and practice in one neat text. Useful for technical communicators, designers of enterprise web sites, or anyone who wants to understand information and how to put it together more effectively.

Designing Interfaces – Tidwell – O’Reilly – Templates and patterns for all kinds of layouts, designs, visual styles, graphics, and navigation methods, along with thorough discussions. Full-colour, beautiful book for effective interaction design, would even be useful for the developer who wants quick ideas to design an interface without doing a ton of research. Plus I just love looking at it because it is such a gorgeous book.

Designing Web Navigation – Kalbach – O’Reilly – This one is as colourful, beautiful, and usable as the O’Reilly book directly above. Engaging reading, worthwhile to look at apart from all the information chocked inside as well. Another “full picture” type book, from an introduction to navigation on the web, through information seeking, browsing behaviour, mechanisms and types of navigation, labeling, evaluation, analysis, architecture, layout, presentation, search, social tagging, and rich web applications. I open it if only to look at the gorgeous typography and colours.

In Part I of Designing Web Navigation, Kalbach begins by explaining web navigation through discussing how users behave and navigate throughout the web, including their behaviours and typical mechanisms used. Types of navigation and labeling are considered.

In Part II, Kalbach offers a framework for navigation design, from evaluation through analysis of business goals, content, technology, and user research. He continues by discussing architecture and information structures along with organizational schemes, once again merging user needs with content and context. Layout from visual logic through page templates and wireframes are considered, along with presentation in terms of information design, interacting with navigation, and graphic design.

Finally, in Part III, Kalbach puts navigation in “special contexts” such as prior to or after search, within faceted browsing and social tagging systems, and finally when used within rich internet applications.

As the world wide web evolves and rich internet applications continue to be designed and developed, Designing Web Navigation offers a thorough look at designing navigation effectively. Along with Designing Interfaces, this book is one that occupies an honoured place on my shelf, and is another must-read for any user experience designer. The techniques used here can be applied on the web or anywhere interface navigation is used.

In the first section Tidwell discusses what users do, explaining the importance of how users think in designing effective interfaces. Several user patterns are discussed to help introduce user behaviour.

Designing Interfaces goes on to cover a broad range of topics in designing the user experience, with easy-to-read, clear descriptions and discussions preceding patterns for interface design. Information architecture and application structure are considered first and foremost, with navigation methods, page layout, actions and commands, information graphics, forms and controls, and builders and editors to follow.

Finally visual style and aesthetics are considered to ensure interfaces are not only usable but enjoyable. Here Tidwell reminds us that interface design must achieve more than effectiveness, and in fact interfaces become more usable by being enjoyable. As Donald Norman states, “positive affect makes people more tolerant of minor difficulties and more flexible and creative in finding solutions”. Tidwell has certainly written a book that will show the reader how to create positive affect, enhancing “creative, breadth-first thinking”, from information architecture right down to the nuances of images and typography used.

An absolute must-have for any user experience designer.

Access by Design, however, was so simplistic and repetitive as to be annoying. I didn’t finish it. The same points were repeated in several sections, and so basic I find it hard to imagine any web designer isn’t already aware of them.

Meanwhile last night I fell in love with Designing Web Navigation by James Kalbach, and Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Designing Web Navigation is subtitled Optimizing the User Experience, and it is richly coloured and beautifully designed in itself. It considers the analysis of the website itself as well as user behaviour to evaluate and determine how navigation methods can be used. Graphic design, information architecture, visual logic, user research and behaviour, and much more, are considered along with investigation of the mechanisms of navigation (ex. breadcrumbs, site maps, a-z directories, paging, and several others).

Flow was located in the Psychology section, and rather than focusing on design, it is a set of investigations on “optimal experience”. Flow is characterized by “deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement”, and is achieved when people are so engaged in what they are doing because they enjoy it that they lose a sense of time, feel more creative, and feel extremely comfortable. I am interested in flow because I see it as the goal of user experience design – although accessibility is admirable, and usability is important as well, I suggest it is flow that can really make a website or application shine. Therefore I’m very interested to examine the subject from a psychology standpoint so I can consider how to bring it forward in design.

I am such a sucker for full-colour texts and vivid examples. I want the pretty pictures! And the clean, vibrant typography, with brilliant headings and geek humour in the content too. Like Dummies books, without the dummy. Real, useful information, in a book I want to flip through again and again!

Then came The Usability Kit, and Deliver First Class Websites, both ordered at once. And somewhere around there, Simply JavaScript too. Soon came the Photoshop Anthology – first offered free for download! Clear, accessible reading. Books I just want to look at. Useful, meaningful concepts and examples.

No, I must not add the feed. However, I have to admit, just writing about them now is putting me dangerously close to visiting their website to see what new books are out now. Eek!