Usability Question

[kevin_standlee]

If you are kproche or anyone else who has worked on the 2009 World Fantasy Con web site, you're ineligible for this question because you already know the answer.

If you wanted to find you whether you were a member of the 2009 WFC and you went to the convention's web site, where do you think you would find this information, if anywhere? If you can't figure it out, what would you suggest changing to make it easier to find? Update: To do this in the spirit intended, I ask that you don't look at the comments until after at least trying with or without the hints below. The comments essentially give the game away, and I'm trying to learn something.

Hint 1: I assure you that the membership list is on the web site, and it is linked from one of the pages that is linked to the top level; that is, if you are at the home page, you're only two clicks away from it.

Hint 2: When you click on some of the menu items, a second level of menus will appear below the first level if there is more information available.

The underlying issue is that if you label the section "Membership" then people will ask (and they have) "How do I register to attend?" or "How much does the convention cost after I've bought my membership?" or "Why do I have to buy a membership when I only want to attend?" or something like that. If you label it "Registration" (which is what I did after getting those questions too many times), you get people asking "I can't find anything on your web site about membership." And if you label it "Registration/Membership," you use up too much real estate and probably confuse both groups of people.

Some people solve this by linking everything from the home page, but that turns the home page into a sea of nothing but links, and it causes a lot of people's eyes to glaze over. I prefer a heirarchical style, but it's not good for people who don't see logical relationships between the subject headings and the items under that subject.

My basic problem is that I want to make everyone happy, and I think it's impossible to do that because of the significantly different ways that people look at information.

Comments

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

if you can't have a separate submenu bar appear once you make a top level selection,...

We do, any time there are submenus involved. Some sections of the site have nothing beyond the top level. If there are no sub-sections, then no sub-menus appear. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you meant.

[lobolance.livejournal.com]

hmm, I should be more specific. the submenu bar needs to be 'obvious' somehow; like vertical when you've only done horizontal before. Though with the cc26 site, I started sticking text with a link onto the page even with a vertical bar, as people still missed it (submenu bar). :-) That's probably the best bet, as different people perceive differently.

I think usability is fascinating stuff!