There are gender wars, and then there are casualties. It wasn’t until 2011 that the behemoth toymaker LEGO acknowledged girls’ desire to build with bricks, even though the company had long before made a seemingly effortless pivot to co-branding, video games, and major motion pictures. So it’s little wonder that girls face all-too-real obstacles when […]
Read moreIntegrating search concepts into web design enables visitors to find relevant information.
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Problem
Visitors must wade through extraneous information to find relevant content, or your web site is not picked up by search engines.
Solution
In addition to making the content of your web site available through remote and local search engines, integrate central search concepts into your web design.
Discussion
As the amount of information online continues to mushroom, finding information has become more and more complex. Not only is searching a critical task for web users, but beginning in 2005 and 2006, major computer operating systems from Apple and Microsoft are expected to incorporate searching as a central feature. Searching will be the primary way to find information.
By keeping in mind that searching is a key element in ease of use when designing your website, you will help visitors find information and make the information they find more relevant to their lives.
You can help visitors find and access information by choosing content wisely; successfully adapting real-world content to the virtual world; incorporating classroom guides, when appropriate; organizing your site for maximum accessibility; overcoming the inherent constraints of web browsers; using “next” and “previous” judiciously; using a local search engine; making the site accessible to both humans and search engine web crawlers; utilizing dynamic navigation; using dynamic content and localization; and including interactive encyclopedias and browsable databases.