Designed for Use

Chapter 7Hierarchies in User Interface Design

In thinking about how websites are organized, you’ll find that they often make use of hierarchies. Sometimes, these hierarchies are even used as explicit user interface elements. Here is an example of a “breadcrumbs” navigation element as it appears on sites like Google Directory:

This navigation element tells people where in a hierarchy the current page is and allows them to “jump up the hierarchy.”

The headers of many news sites also show a hierarchy of sorts but often use two or three levels of tabs ...