[thelist] three usability questions

[Erik Mattheis]

A client has hired a consultant to alter their image; this consultant 
is not experienced with the web, but redesigning and rearranging the 
website is part of it. She acknowledges that websites are not her 
forte, I've just listened so far. There are some things she's ask for 
that I firmly believe are bad ideas, but don't want to bring up an 
issue if my opinion is overly subjective, so if you could help me check 
myself. TIA.

The consultant would like the text of articles to run all the way 
across the page. One of my pet peeves is websites that allow long 
sections of text to run 100% of the browser window. I find it can be 
difficult to find the next line when reading text at 100% of the 
window's width. Thoughts?

My second question is perhaps the most likely to be my subjective 
opinion: The site serves different audiences - for instance, there's 
stuff for kids, stuff for parents, stuff for legislators, stuff for 
attorneys. The information for each audience isn't useful to anyone 
outside of that target audience. So that's how the site is organized, a 
top-level section for each audience. The consultant wishes to change 
the top level sections to conceptual categories, like "articles", 
"advocacy", "resources", etc. Am I off in thinking that the site will 
be less usable to visitors if the content intended only for them is 
spread out across the site among content not intended for them instead 
of in a single section with everything for that audience? Six one, half 
a dozen the other?

Last query: If we end up doing conceptually grouped sections, the site 
hierarchy will be pushed one level deeper to 5 levels of links for just 
a few articles. She has suggested making the second level links 
"hierarchical menus" . I think it's a bad idea! a. They're so "1999"  
b. It seems horrid usability to make site navigation go like this:

always visible links > rollover hierarchical menus > always visible 
links > always visible links > select box for multi-page articles

I could imagine, for instance, a lawyer finding an article for parents 
from a google search, and the "Resources for Attorneys" link being 
hidden in a hierarchical menu, and the visitor would return to their 
search results without finding all the fascinating stuff they were 
looking for. I like it better with a big fat "Attorneys" link at the 
top of every page and every link on the page visible no matter where 
they happen to have their mouse pointer!
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- Erik Mattheis
612 377 2272
http://gozz.com/