Community Embraces New Word Game at Mid-Year Play Day This past Sunday, families at Takoma Park’s Seventh Annual Mid-Year Play Day had the opportunity to experience OtherWordly for the first time. Our educational language game drew curious children and parents to our table throughout the afternoon. Words in Space Several children gathered around our iPads […]
Read moreIntegrating search concepts into web design enables visitors to find relevant information.
 |
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.