Fisheye navigation support at Inktomi. The graphic at the top of
the page clearly shows that we are looking at its search engine
product (and that the other products are the traffic server and
the shopping engine). Within this set of product pages, we are
currently looking at the partner, and there is a simple way to
jump to the other five pages about this product.
Sun's standard page design is embedded within an L-shaped
navigation template with elaborate navigation support. It is
instructive to look at the two different ways the navigation
features are supported in two different versions of the design.
The 1998 design of the navigation system provided several levels
of hierarchy. The choices on the highest level were listed across
the top, the current location is stated with two levels of
nesting in the second horizontal bar, and choices at lower levels
are given down the side. The search box is shown immediately
below the logo: a prominent location, but one that turned out to
be used relatively rarely by other sites as they started to add
search boxes to their pages later in 1998 and 1999.
The 1999 design is much simplified from a graphics perspective
and with respect to download time. The top-level choices are
mainly relegated to a drop-down menu, although the most important
ones are still shown across the top. The current location is now
shown in a breadcrumb trail, which has the advantage of showing
all the levels (particularly good for a deeply nested article
like the one in the figure) but has the disadvantage of not
showing the neighboring alternatives. Finally, the lower-level
choices continue to be shown down the side. The search box has
been moved to the upper right: a location that started to become
a convention during 1999.
