Driving along the highway today I was thinking about mapping. I am one of those drivers that needs a visual picture of how to get from here to there. Directions are fine under one condition, I am given visual cues. I use map quest, I look at the map, look at the mileage and get directions from a human who can give me visual cues. Forget the linear directions, they do not compute. I can follow the directions, but I make more mistakes, get insecure and doubt myself at every passing mile. I use mind-mapping. If I am lucky enough to have a map, compass and visual cues I can easily follow linear directions. So I did a little research, I looked up mind-mapping. Mind mapping is how I think, in fact, mind mapping is how I develop UI architecture, but I map backwards.

While reading “The Web Designers Guide to Web Applications” by Hagan and David Rivers I was amazed by the simplicity of the methods suggested, this method resembles mind mapping, but instead one uses tasks. Task-mapping.

Of course this is the method I use, but I never really put a method to the way I think, I was in my mind being logical. Undoing the linear and reformatting or re-mapping the logic to the way a user may think or work. The components we need to give our users when developing web applications are simplistic – a good map- clear directions as to how one will navigate, visual cues, a beginning and an end – distance (how many steps) – organization of tasks.

Advertisement