Technical Communication Introduction: Critique

This page reviews the Web site, Newbie Techwriter, examining its navigation links. The Web site's author, Paul Dunham, draws on his own experience in the field to provide useful information and resources for beginning technical writers.

This page examines the the strengths (

) and weaknesses (

) of the site's navigation links, organized by the following formats:

Navigation Bars
The navigation bars are graphic menus at the top of each page of the Web site.
Page menus
The page menus are graphic menus that appear in the body of the pages.
Text links
The text links are included in the text of the pages.
Footer menus
The footer menus are text menus that appear at the bottom of the pages.

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Navigation Bars

	Menus are consistent in content and location on each page. Menus lead to the main page of each topic ("Home," "Tools," "Jobs," et cetera).
	Menus are small, dark, and not immediately visible. Menu items don't look like buttons. Text is preceded by angle brackets (>>) and gives the appearance of a "breadcrumb" trail. Menu items don't disable for the page you're on. Menu items have no "mouseover" feature (the selection that the cursor is above becomes highlighted) to indicate where you're going.

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Page menus

Menus are visible and attractive.
Menu items are bold and easy to skim.

Menu items are not clearly links.
- Suggested solution: Adding a "mouseover" feature would help alleviate this problem.
Menus are not included on each topic page.
Menu items are not consistently spaced, aligned, or annotated.
Notice the differences between these page menus:

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Text links

Text links are uncommon and don't distract you from the content.
- Frequent text links can make the text of the page look crowded and harder to read.

Text links are unclear as to whether they are internal or external.
- For example: Some of these are e-mail links, some link to sub-topics, and some lead to other Web sites.
Some pages in the site are only linked to by text links.
- For example: "Twenty questions" is a sub-topic under "Interview," and is only linked within the text.
- Suggested solution: Including a site map would provide redundant navigation and better indicate where you are.

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Footer menus

	Menus provide additional navigation to subordinate topic pages. For example: From the page "Resumes>>MS Word Resumes," the footer menu links to the pages for the other types of resumes. Menu items change color to indicate where you've been.
	Footer menus are not included on all of the pages. Menu items are removed for current pages. Suggested solution: Providing the full menu on each page with a deactivated link for the current page would better indicate where you are.