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the Free CMSWire NewsletterWe're closing focus on content and website optimization this week with a few pieces from the expert pool. Read on for coverage of optimization myths, what it really takes to promote findability, and, as always, an attempt at demystifying the whole shebang.
- Web Optimization: The Myth of the 3 Click Rule. Website, and Intranet, design has matured almost beyond recognition since the early nineties. Copies of Frontpage have been banished to the great software cemetery in the sky, and modern content management systems allow us to develop very sophisticated systems with relative ease. As an industry we have made great strides in our tools, processes, and methodologies.
- Web Optimization: W3C Takes Semantic Web to Next Level. If you think RDFa and the semantic web is only for geeks, it's time to take a second look. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is advancing the standards for tomorrow's Internet and web content management vendors are getting on-board. The result is going to be a smarter, more findable Web.
- Content Optimization and Promoting Findability at the Macro Level. In a previously published article, Information Overload and Improving Intranet Findability, we talked about overcoming challenges around our ability to filter through the copious amounts of data that we’re confronted with on a daily basis inside our organizations. Expanding on that topic, let’s now take a look at it from a much broader perspective, one that extends out beyond the firewall and into the digital realm of the Internet itself.
But one or two relics from the early days still remain, including a number of design myths. Anyone who is involved developing web based systems will be familiar with this request from clients:
“Users must be able to access all content with a maximum of 3 clicks”
This is generally referring to an unofficial web design rule, the '3 click rule', specifically talking about navigating to content. It suggests that a user of a website, or Intranet, should be able to find any information with no more than three mouse clicks. Any more than this and the user will become frustrated and abandon the task at hand.
It is a theory that arose very early on in the short history of website design, and as such has attached to it a certain kudos. Nobody quite knows why it is held in such high esteem, but it is very rarely questioned. Clients who contract vendors to build websites or Intranets seem particularly fond of quoting this phrase during the requirements gathering phase, and look on in horror if they are told it is no longer relevant.
The W3C recently took another significant step forward with their semantic web project — the publishing of the first public working draft (FPWD) of the RDFa API. This document by the RDFa Working Group has long been expected, and is significant as it enables developers to begin using RDFa in their applications. The RDFa API document details the mechanism by which software can make use of (extract facts from) RDFa mark-up inside of web pages.
In this day and age it’s easy to publish content online. Anyone can do it and the ease with which it can be done has resulted in a massive explosion of digital data, which some expect to surpass an estimated 988 EB (exabyte) this year. The sheer volume of information is inconceivable, let alone challenges encountered overcoming difficulties in our attempts to both find and be found online.
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