RE: request for sample page structure analyses

 

    -----Original Message-----
    From: david poehlman 

    I'm interested in getting at the heart of things, so hope 
    we can have discussion so I post the below. 
    Analyses of analyses:
    
    Can we have this in daisy book fashion?

dp. Have what Dave? 

    
    
    *Primary navigation.
    *Secondary navigation.
    *Tertiary navigation.
    *dp* this expresses no meaning for me at all.

A chunk of a web page which contains navigation, e.g. a list of links.
Relative to the page, its either primary, secondary or tertiary.

    
    
    *Generic navigation.
    *dp* maybe a better term would be menu or main menu?  If it 
    is unrelated 
    than perhaps site menu?  Can some of these be described as 
    tables of 
    contents?

It may not be presented as a menu. It may not be tabular,
but that would be an alternative? E.g. The amazon site, on any page,
has links to other areas, e.g. I'm in the cookbook section, a generic
navigation area links out to thrillers.  We tried to generalise such
that it might be applicable to many sites.

    *Contextual navigation.
    *dp* this sends a signal to me about internalization not 
    same as above at 
    all.  It is more closely aligned with a table of contents.

dp. The only difference between this and the above is that this
is related to the content and hence context of the main contents
of this page. E.g. could be to other cookbooks in the amazon example.




    *Logo
     Text or graphical item.
    This is too non specific a meaning for something so 
    specific.  I'd say that 
    a logo is the company/organizational mast head.  I'm not 
    even sure I'd call 
    it a cannonical page part as it is often contained in 
    something that does 
    something or if it stands alone, it's just a logo.

dp. I'd be happy with masthead, but on some sites we looked at
it was a tiny fraction of the page width, e.g. virgin and zdnet.




    
    *Header. Content at the top of a page, often common across 
    the pages of
    a specific site. Visual separation from the content of the page.
    *dp* top of page? This has more meaning orientatively than header.
dp. Yes, agreed. That was the direction, a visual analysis. After which
the terms could be used for other things.





    
    *Footer. Often common across a site. Usually visually separated from
    the remainder of the page, may contain other items.
    *dp* more generically, end of page?  Footer is fine though 
    because unlike 
    header, it is usually more prominently displayed.

dp. We found quite a variance in the footer size. Similarly with what
we agreed was a header. The only help we found was using the 'constant
across the pages of a site'. 


    *A form.  As per the html definition. Unsure if a searchbox is an
      equivalent.  I think we need to use form in the 
    fullest sense.

dp. I'm happy with that. I didn't specify its size. A form as per the html
sense matches our use.


    
    *Content (perhaps page content might be more specific?). The major
    block of content of a page. Often the central block in a page.
    *dp* the entire page is content.  We need to deffine this 
    more precicely as 
    a block of text and possibly only one block of text or main 
    page body if 
    that is the case.
dp. From our visual inspection, the definition we were happy with
was not difficult to spot. Often the central area of the entire page.
Often the actual bit read, as apposed to links to other places.
Suggest a better word than content please Dave?




    
    *Section. A part of content. May have its own heading.
    *dp* what bounds a section?  What is a section contained 
    in? 

dp. Varies with the page being analysed, as I said in my vocabulary.
These are generic. Apply what nesting is appropriate to the page
being described, to the granularity needed for use.



    
    *Text block. Lowest level of content, from a single 
    paragraph up to a
    series of paragraphs.
    *dp* perhaps not the lowest level.

dp. Ditto, apply what nesting is needed for the application.
>From the sites we looked at, we agreed that this generally was
the visually lowest level.


    
    *Advertisement. Visual entity, text or graphic or animated 
    gif or other
    means of realisation.
    *dp* I like the description, but advertisement may not be 
    the correct word 
    here since lots of these are done for other than advert reasons. 
    Advertisement is certainly something that welcomes 
    distinction though so we 
    can throw it away.

dp. If its not an advert, don't call it one. We meant this word
specifically for adverts, not the more general graphics or images etc.



    *pop-up window. Is this part of a page?
    *dp* is it there before you pop it up?
dp. I don't know Dave. We decided to ask on this one, since a pop up
originates from a specific page, but is not part of it? How to relate
this to a fly-out menu, or tooltip etc. 

    
    
    ** site reviews.
    
  

    *Left hand side, there are 5 blocks.
    *dp* this is missing from the list above and is important to have.

Sorry, this is what I am describing. Hence there are words for 5 'things'.
5 screen areas being described. Hence blocks. 

    
    
    *Right hand side, 5 blocks.
    *dp* this is also meaningfull and missing from the list of terms.
as above, not a term.


    
    *block 1 to 5, contextual navigation
    b*lock 6, advertisement
    What determines the number of the block?

dp. Visual count that we did.

    
HTH DaveP


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Received on Friday, 22 October 2004 13:40:32 UTC