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January 31, 2008

Pacman navigation

Navigation is the lifeline of almost any website. A lot of thought should go into the labels and appearance of buttons and the (identifying information on the) pages they lead to. If done right, a user should be 'lured' to the right information, just by following the signals. This is also known as the Scent methodology. This works particularly well for users with a predefined goal or interest.

Pacman

But what if you want to bring something new or different to the attention of the visitor? Is there a subtle way (as opposed to e.g. banners) to get them off the beaten track? I was thinking of a Pacman-like approach: chasing something through the site (it appears and disappears on buttons). The chase could lead to a specific page or function as a 'random' walkthrough, showing to visitors pages they may not have known existed.

In this respect also see this funny safety video from Virgin America; getting back attention to something nobody paid attention to anymore.

Posted by Almar at January 31, 2008 12:21 PM



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