I do not expect every item in every one of Jakob Nielson’s articles to bear fruit; still, it is a bit of a surprise…the extent to which those same problems apply in VW design.

In an earlier post, I found that reviewing Nielson’s very first point scored a hit. A web design mistake described in ‘96 still has meaning when looking at virtual world design. Today, I returned again to that first “Mistakes” article. Among other points mentioned in the article, he advised against

• design bloat (gratuitous use of tech)
• moving or blinking text
• long download times
• orphan pages
• long scrolling pages

Each of these issues does have something to say about virtual content; so, they will be added to the list. They do not deal specifically with navigation or information display, so they may not be reviewed for a while.

One other nugget mentioned there is worth mining here:

Lack of Navigation Support

“Don’t assume that users know as much about your site as you do. They always have difficulty finding information, so they need support in the form of a strong sense of structure and place. Start your design with a good understanding of the structure of the information space and communicate this structure explicitly to the user. Provide a site map and let users know where they are and where they can go.”

— Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design (’96) by Jakob Nielsen

Developers working in SL may read this and say “Duh! That’s obvious.” But, many of them have come from the web design field where these issues are standard fare. Site maps are now common elements in web design. I even found a couple of site maps in world (images below). And, since I still have not seen a comprehensive list of design criteria I will add this to the list and press on…

Are you building out an entire region? Does the design occupy enough space to warrant a site map? What features can a site map employ? What is the best example of a site map you have seen?

Site map provided for visitors to Elucian Islands (SLURL)

Site map provided for visitors to Tata Indicom; (SLURL)